Religion was the original and is still today the most successful form for societal control in the history of the world. Government coming a close second. I myself was raised jewish but haven't practiced or been to temple since I was 13. I find that organized religion leaves quite a sour taste in my mouth. After all, religion has been the cause for more death and destruction than another other cause. Someone's god is always better than someone else's god. This is clear even today in the current war on terrorism or war in iraq. Many believe this to be a 'holy war' on both sides of the globe and they wouldn't be that far off in their beliefs.

That being said, I do have a intellectual fascination with religion, especially christianity as it is so prevalent and quite mystical and enjoy reading about all the weird and odd aspects of religion. I am what many would consider to be 'agnostic' as I don't really have an opinion either way. Maybe there is a god and maybe there isn't a god. I like to have as much information at my disposal though so reading this book could be quite informative.

I have asked daniel for the book and I look forward to reading it. If a book is powerful enough to cause a religious change in a pool hustler/poker player, it is definitely worth a read. Especially if it is free.

my god vs. your god in a steel cage match ....no rules...pin falls count anywhere..winner will win the title of "unbeaten world heavyweight deity"......lets get readddddyyyy to rummmble...brought to you by budweiser...

Within the past few months I have come to the knowledge that my beautiful wife is pregnant. With all the doctors appointments (she is having complications) I have had a new view on life and some of the things that confuse people. We have pictures of our unborn child on the refrigerator, and pregnancy books all over the house. My point being, for those of you who have had the opportunity to have children how could you not believe in something higher than yourself, in a being or spirit or some kind of power helping us out. Is it coincidence that we happen to be just the right distance from the sun, so that plants and animals and ourselves can all live together? Is it coincidence that our atmosphere is just the right distance and mixture of gases so that we can breathe the air. Is it a coincidence that the air we breathe in is transformed in our lungs, heart, and capillaries into energy that we need to survive? Is it coincidence that we as humans are the only creatures on the planet who can think analytically, emotionally, and know of our own existence and take that existence away at anytime (suicide)? I’m sure that all the miraculous things that go into making, having, and giving birth to a child are just coincidences also. Some may think the whole process we call life is chaotic, but what is more humbling to know that we ourselves can create life to proceed on after us and have faith that there is something else besides coincidences.

please stop preaching.

good thread.

Very excellent post. Nothing like the birth of children that kind of ties the universe together for someone.

Who is preaching?

Looks to me like a lot of people are talking.

If you feel like you are being preached to, stop clicking on the thread and you won't feel that way any longer.

Do u like hot pockets?

or do you LOVE them?

Couldn't help but catch the cat guy saying Christianity is a "crutch". That's always been so interestingly wrong, as an analogy. Think about it.......Christians are swimming AGAINST the current. Upstream. The masses enjoy the normal life of selfishness, which we are all drawn to. But as a Christian, one is constantly trying to go the other direction, while taking ridicule for doing such. How exactly would this be a crutch?

Seems to me, being a Christian is much harder to do in today's modern world--or ever, for that reason. To me, a CRUTCH would be just drifting along with the rest of the stream. How easy. How simple. Heck, you could do that in a wheelchair, nevermnd a crutch. Try swimming UPSTREAM against the flow. A crutch would only be a hinderance.
Let's rethink this old "crutch" analogy, please.

As an agnostic, here is why Christianity makes me angry. Say you know someone who says that they have an orange on their head, even though they don't. It's plainly not there. It is blatantly obvious to everybody that there is no orange on your friend's head.

He insists there is though, and no matter how much logical reasoning you use to try and convince him that there is no orange on his head, he will reply "there's an orange on my head, ok, there just is".

He isn't hurting anyone by believing that there is an orange on his head, but nevertheless, if you have to constantly listen to him tell you that there is, indeed, an orange on his head, eventually you will get a bit angry. You won't be able to help it. His complete and utter disregard for logic will get on your nerves, eventually. Because it's just so, so, stupid.

An agnostic wouldn't believe one way or another whether there was an orange on the guy's head. The agnostic would say, hmm, I don't see any evidence of an orange there, but perhaps the orange is there and I just don't see it.

Your approach is the approach of an atheist, not an agnostic.

good point

I disagree....

The practical wisdom found in these verses in the book of Proverbs covers the subject of child rearing and corporal punishment. Children who are not properly disciplined, are among the most miserable of children. Unruly and spoiled children are not the blessings that the Bible says they should be to parents. When a child is given no boundaries, they feel lost. If they have been given boundaries, yet those boundaries are not maintained, it causes great harm to a child, as they will not only be in dangerous territory, they will also lose respect for authority. This is where we find so many of the children and youth of today. They are rebels, who not only disrespect authority, but openly defy all authority figures such as teachers, policemen, clergy, and their own parents. The blame rests upon the parents of these children, if they have not heeded the advice given in this and other verses found in Proverbs.

This brings us to the subject of how we should discipline a child who disobeys the rules. There has been much debate on the subject of corporal punishment (the spanking of a child). Corporal punishment simply means bodily punishment while the definition of spank in Webster's Dictionary is: 1.) to strike with something flat, as the open hand, especially on the buttocks, as in punishment. 2.) to move along swiftly or smartly, a smack given in spanking.

First of all, discipline of children should begin at an early age, whenever a child begins to defy the parent. Remember the old saying, "He who spares the rod, spoils the child." Notice that the Bible says that all children have foolishness in their hearts. The Bible definition of a fool means one who is a rebel, so this is saying that all children have rebellion in them and when it surfaces, it is our duty as parents to drive it out of them. We are to do this by punishing them with a whack on the buttocks with a small reed-like rod. This rod could be a switch from a fruit tree branch or a willow tree branch or a small wooden spoon. It is not to be a large heavy rod or anything that would cause permanent physical damage. The purpose of a spanking is not to cause any lasting bodily harm, but to cause spiritual correction. A spanking should be swift and cause short lived pain that makes a point. That point is that the small pain they feel now will prevent them from feeling great pain by the act they are committing, which could cause them loss of their lives in some cases. (For instance, if a child tries to run across the street, they could be run over and killed.)

Some people say that all spanking is child abuse, but this is totally wrong. The real abuse to the child is not to spank them when they need correction. Of course, some parents, who themselves are out of control, can abuse their children by beating them in angry rages. This is child abuse, however, it does not justify doing away with spanking children if it is done properly, and for the right reasons. Parents who beat their children, need help themselves. They are sinful people and they not only will abuse their children by beating them, but will hurt them in other ways as well. Many times, these same children are left to go hungry and uncared for. They have no love. These kind of homes need the love of Christ so that the whole family can be healed. We are not to spank our children with uncontrolled anger, and thus hand out unjust punishment

Humans have limited perception, but through faith your friend believes in things that he can't necessarily see. Similarly, you probably believe in the existence of atoms, even though you've never seen one first hand - only read about them in books.

SMASH WROTE
"If you want to treat people well, then treat people well. Don't treat people well because someone told you that some guy who was nailed to a tree 2000 years ago, of whom there is absolutely no credible jistorical eveidence of him even existing, told you to."


May I suggest a book called "The Case For Christ" written by Lee Strobel. He started out as a reporting journalist who was going to prove once and for all that Christianity and Jesus was a hoax, with no credible historical evidenence to prove His existence, and by the end of his search he became a believer because of the fact that he did find overwhelming evidence of a historical Jesus and then of the claims Jesus made about being the Saviour and even proof of his death and resurrection. I think you will find it interesting.

With regard to your comment about Christianity being for the weak...
If Jesus didn't rise from the dead just as he said, how can you explain the fact that at the time of his death, all of his disciples ran away like big scared sissies. But after his resurrection, they all became bold preaching individuals who died horrible deaths for the sake of the gospel of Christ. If Jesus was a hoax and they knew it, (the stolen body theory) why would they die for a lie? It doesn't make sense.

Also, the history of Alexander The Great is taken as fact and the earliest writings of Alexander were done 500 years after he lived!! Quite a bit of time if you ask me to still get the facts right? Yet historians believe the stories. Compare that to the Bible which as I said was written in the same generation of the life of Jesus. hmmmm, methinks it could be true.

JackTheCat

IT'S ALL GOOD!

i'd say whenever someone finds something that they truly believe is a reason to get up every morning, it generally makes them a nicer, happier person. Christianity does this for a lot of people. Without a doubt there are christians who try to force their beliefs on other people, but there are also athiests and agnostics who do the same.

faith in *something* i believe is the most important thing for people to have, and thats why i think people, especially born-agains, are happier and nicer once they decide to become christian

I know that a poker forum is a terrible place for evangelism, but if a person truly believes in Christ, wouldn't it be hypocritical to NOT spread the word? If you don't judge somebody for being Christian, how can you fault them for sharing their view/preaching?

YOU CANNOT GET ORDER OUT OF CHAOS... (for those who subscribe to the big bang, everything just happened to come into existence theory.. it takes more faith to believe that then it does to believe in God and Jesus)

JackTheCat

define order...

chaotic systems are still everywhere



but that aside... the big bang theory actually allows for an existence of a god moreso than any other scientific theory...

before the big bang, the entire universe was a singularity... no volume and infinite mass. last time i checked my physics notes, physical law breaks down at this point... therefore, you can have a bearded magical wizard walking around in sandals randomly creating stuff :shock: ... (at least thats how i picture god )

People would rather take the word of a scientist. They don't realize that even modern science is a very dynamic field. Oftentimes scientific breakthroughs and "revelations" are dispelled only a short time later. I find it interesting that the general public is so far removed from the scientific frontier, yet many people take it as fact. 99% of people don't even understand how a radio or a microwave works, yet they believe in the big bang theory. Now THAT's faith.

so i guess dinosaurs never existed.

Actually, I'm pretty sure the earliest text of the new testament was written about 200 years after the death of christ. And many were written long after that. As many as 500 years as is the number you chose. It is a grouping of stories written at different times by different people. There wasn't a court stenographer taking down the words of christ for a new publication coming out in the year 1 titled 'The Bible'.

Thank you for starting this topic, I know my life really turned around when I started walking the walk. The only thing I would say that might be misleading is when you said that all your problems went away. I think that as a Christian we may endure more hardships and Jesus never said if you become a Christian your life is going to be all roses. In fact he said the opposite that you will suffer because of His name.

That's all, I just don't want to mislead people into thinking every problem they have will be magically solved. What can happen is that people will give their heart to Christ and be all happy but at the first sign of trouble they will leave the faith in their weakness and disolutionment because they were told that Christians have no problems.

There is one most important problem that will definately be solved and that is, "where am I going to spend eternity", and really isn't that what it's all about?

JackTheCat
IT'S ALL GOOD!

funny story about that...

i had an evangelist friend at this one job i worked.... and he constantly claimed the world was 10,000 years old at most. i was kinda thrown back by this obvious crock of crap.

i explained that objects have been carbon dated and shown to be older.


he said carbon dating is a myth.

a week later he was discussing some religious artifacts that were from the time of christ.

i asked him how he knew that they were from that time


"carbon dating"

When was the bible written?

http://www.carm.org/bible/biblewhen.htm

What does that have to do with anything?

Of course dinosaurs existed. As does evolution. Neither of them cancel out Christianity.

You have a warped view of what Christians believe, it seems. Other than Bible Purists, most Christians believe in dinos and many believe in evolution.

I'm talking about the New Testiment which was written only about 40 years after the death of Christ, by first hand eyewitnesses and others who received the information from the disciples... You might want to double check your sources..

JackTheCat

Very good point. Being raised Catholic (although, I wouldn't consider myself it anymore), I was taught to believe that anybody could be 'saved' or go to heaven even if they did not believe in christ, it only had to do with how they lived their life.

I once gave the hypothetical to this girl i met on a vacation, I'm from Maine and shes from Oklahoma, so there was a bit of a culture gap. Anyways, we were talking about christianity, and I said, "Say a guy who has lived his life perfectly, provided charity for the needy, taken care of his family, does everything jesus would want, but doesn't believe in jesus. Say one day you're crossing the street and about to get hit by a truck, and this guy jumps in and pushes you out of the way, only to get hit and killed himself. Does he go to heaven?"

and she replied "No, he wasn't christian. It's my fault that I didn't spread the word to him."

Sometimes, I think that type of thought behavior can be deconstructive.

haha

There was a very interesting study done regarding the population of the planet.

The scientist took the information from the Bible, regarding Noah, his three sons and their wives, and then put in the known growth rate of the population as historically recorded for years, and when he did the calculation, the number of people on the earth today would be about 6 bilion. Guess what, that's how many people there are today.

Nothwithstanding the people who actually believe that man walked the earth hundreds of thousands of years ago, if you believed that man lived a mere 40,000 years ago, using the known poplulation rate of growth this planet would have more people than there are atoms in the universe.

Just another proof that the Bible is accurate and historical.

JackTheCat

What is the difference between cult and religion?

cult - A religion or religious sect generally considered to be extremist or false, with its followers often living in an unconventional manner under the guidance of an authoritarian, charismatic leader.

atoms dont have mass extinction and plague


humans do... all the time.

whole civilizations have collapsed.

ice ages have killed food supplies

floods have destroyed cities.



that model is based upon current population growth i.e. current health care/medicine/food quality.



im not discounting the christian faith.. i am still undecided. i dislike organized religion. i feel like there is a higher power at the time, but i find my scientific side laughing at that.... as a 19 year old i realize i will find my true beliefs eventually

so i guess dinosaurs never existed, ddogphx.

and cavemen only exist in geico commercials.

Quantum mechanics would disagree with you.

The big bang theory does not disprove or even suggest the impossibility of a creator. Like jayistheman said, before the big bang the universe was a singularity. Infinite mass, zero volume. Most importantly, zero time. Everything is based on time. It is impossible to theorize what was happening before time existed since all observations are based on time.

Well, I was mainly thinking about Christianity and all it entails, not the existence of God.

But, with regard to the existence of a God, I have no idea whether one exists or not, because I believe it is a completely unanswerable question. I therefore believe that anyone who claims to have the answer to that question to be flying in the face of logic. It shouldn't even be a question, except that it benefits people to belive that there is such thing as a higher power.

and cavemen only exist in geico commercials.



haha

What I find to be interesting is when somebody says they have "good" morals. It always leads me to ask these questions.
1. have you ever looked at a girl and thought man i want to be with her... thats lust
2. have you ever taken something that wasnt urs...thats stealing
3. have you everhad something go bad and taken Jesus's name in vain...
4. Have u ever just really hated someone and put them down to the extent that they are useless...thats a form of murder.
5. Do you idolize something? (basically do you put something above all else and go at all costs to please it)

It would be my guess and my from my own experience that the good majority of people would agree with most if not all.. Well by agreeing to those you are really contradicting yourself. Because by doing those you arent such a great person after all. It is b/c of all this sin that we have that we were hopeless. It took Jesus who was able to perfectly fulfill these laws to end them. It was through Him that we are able to escape the clutches of the Law.

As for christianity being for the weak. It is amazing when you think about how many people have died for thier beliefs. That is what you call conviction. That they would not change thier beliefs under any circumstances even the threat of death. If thats considered weak then I hope to be that weak. Most people live under the thought that hey if im pressure enough ill go ahead and bend my beliefs for that other person. Now which one sounds weaker?

As for those who say well I wasnt there so it could be made up. There are almost 29000 copies of the Biblical works that have been found from before the time of Jesus to now. Some might say o well thats relative to something. Well books like the Illiad have only about 650 copies... So yah relatively speaking the copies of the Bible blow most acient works away. As for Jesus's death and resurrectioning being some fake story. The Disciples and Apostles for the most part preached to people who had been around when Jesus graced this earth. Now how exactly were they converting people to christianity (sometimes 5000 at a time) if they were preaching waht people to be false? Why did the Romans and Jews not just show the dead body of Christ to prove that he wasnt resurrected? It would have been that easy. I mean everybody knew where the body was it was a big deal after the claims Jesus made. Yet nobody could produce the body. Finally if you have any knowledge of the Bible then you know that most of the Disciples/Apostles died for preaching the Word of God. Now if you knew something was false, would you be willing to die for it? I wouldnt and I would say that most of you would agree.

This is a completely ridiculous comparison. I've never seen a lion either.

what you will find with cults is that most are based off of doing good works. It is how they attract people. By saying that if you do this this and this you will be looked upon as good in Gods eyes

But what the Bible says is that it is through "grace through faith and not b/c of works that you have been saved"

Interesting fact about that, a group of people took lava rocks formed from Mt. St. Helens, which erupted in 1980. They took a few samples of rock to the most reputible scientific dating firm in the U.S. and the firm dated the rocks at over a million years old, actually giving different dates for the rocks that were the same age. ... hmm they missed the mark don't you think?
JackTheCat

Sounds like the beginnings of christianity.

But you missed the other definitions:

2. a system or community of religious worship and ritual.
3. The formal means of expressing religious reverence; religious ceremony and ritual.
4. A usually nonscientific method or regimen claimed by its originator to have exclusive or exceptional power in curing a particular disease.

Oh boy...this thread is already getting unwieldy. Rather than dive headfirst into the debate, I'm just going to hit and run with a few things.



This is ridiculous. All this means is that the universe is expanding. Here's an example to illustrate that this does not mean the Earth is the center. Suppose everything in the universe is in a fixed position and the Earth is next to the very edge of everything. If the Earth were to move closer to the edge, the distance between the Earth and everything else would increase.

Of course, the center of the universe is a meaningless idea anyway.

Ah...this won't let me quote from further back. Anyway, someone made the point that we have tons of evidence of Jesus dating all the way back to the 2nd century CE.

Wow. So, we have absolutely NO primary sources. How useful and convincing. By the second century, Christians are spreading anywhere and the story was well known...so some people wrote it down, whatever. I'm not arguing that Jesus didn't exist, as I think there is enough evidence for that, but just about nothing else can be corraborated by a reliable source.

Also, it was Constantine, not Constantinople. He was responsible for making Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire, but is seems as if he didn't quite understand it as he continued to worship the old gods as well. His conversion was entirely political.

thats between you and general chemistry/physics...


maybe i'm wrong, but hasnt the rock only been in that FORM since 1980? the actual molten material has been around for millions of years.

i don't know if this matters for carbon dating or not... so i wont argue it until i find out... any info from someone who knows is appreciated.

Then someone didn't know what they were talking about when they taught you that.

The concept of man is not saved by grace alone does not discredit the need of faith.

"Can you believe that guy?"

"That's really condescending."


Hahaha. Anyway, I don't like getting into forum arguments over religion simply because most people have done little to no research on religion. They go with the opinion of other people, who most of the time also have done little to no research. Various quotes from this thread, such as "there is no proof the man Jesus existed" prove this.

If you're really interested, read not only "The Case for Christ", but "The Case for Faith" by Stroble (same premise, only it explores the concept of faith) and "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis. If you still don't believe after reading those books, fine, but at least you'll know the reason why millions of people do. If you haven't done any research and are saying that you don't believe in religion just because it seems unlikely... well, you really have no place in a debate about religion.

Jayistheman wrote:
thats between you and general chemistry/physics...


maybe i'm wrong, but hasnt the rock only been in that FORM since 1980? the actual molten material has been around for millions of years.

i don't know if this matters for carbon dating or not... so i wont argue it until i find out... any info from someone who knows is appreciated.[/quote]




According to what I heard, they scientists say the date of the rock is measured from the time they were formed, which means 15 years ago for the Mt. St. Helen's rock.. Remember that is how they say they measure the age of the rock.

JackTheCat

Grave robbery perhaps? Fairly popular back in the day. I'm sure someone thought that the king of the Jews must have been buried with some valuable stuff.

Read The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel, he addresses every theory put out there regarding this..

JackTheCat

There is, of course, no difference