MeckMeck GRE
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I and two of my friends were just reading a special kind of book. Sometimes this books give you tasks and one of the harder ones is a poll you shall do. At first I feel a bit stupid (as stupid as I felt when I had to ask people how much ciggarets a day and what brand they smoke for a school poll). But then one of my friend encouraged me so strong that I ll do the poll. The questions are rather religious....

Who do you think is Jesus (Christ) and what do you think of him ?

Please give me an answer... also dont misunderstand it. Im not gonna playing the forum pope.....

b0rsuk
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0

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jamie
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The problem with the "second coming of Christ" is that people - even religious ones - wouldn't accept it.

Anyway claiming to be Jesus Christ would be looked up in an asylum - indeed, that may have already happened!

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Chalks
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MeckMeck GRE wrote:
Who do you think is Jesus (Christ) and what do you think of him ?

I hesitate to respond to this question because many people are very sensitive on the whole religion thing. That being said, I think I'm entitled to my opinion, and it doesn't really matter if someone disagrees with it. Partly because someone will no matter what I say or don't say. So, to answer your question:

I am a Bible believing Christian (yes there are Christians who don't believe the Bible). As such, I think that Jesus is the Son of God, is God, the saviour of mankind, and a perfect man. I believe he came to earth to save us from our sins. He did this by dying on the cross for every person's sins. On the third day he rose from the dead and soon thereafter he ascended into heaven.

I also believe that he will come back again. The Bible says he will come "like a thief in the night". No he's not going around taking jewelery. Rather, coming when everyone least expects in. Also when he does come back, I think that it's "THE END OF THE WORLD!!!" This could be litterally at any time. I have read the book of revelations, and depending on how you interpret it, he could come back anywhere from now till who knows when.

When he comes back, man will be judged. Yeah.

So, as radical as that may sound, that is what I believe. Oh, and I don't 'shove my religion down your throat'. I believe the only way to share a person's religion is by living a life that exemplifies that religion. Maybe talking about it occasionaly but not the whole in your face kinda thing.

-Chalks

trick
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While running like an idiot over a bridge today, I was stopped by two people who wanted to tell me about Jesus Christ. I didn't have time for a chat at that moment, so I said as much, they wished me a good day and actually seemed to mean it (which was nice), and I ran on.

Anyway.

I'm not the religious type, at least not in the usual sense of the word. My opinion is that if there's a god, it's part of all of us, not just this one individual that lived two thousand years ago. So, I don't believe Jesus was any more or less the son of God than the rest of us. I believe he may have lived, seems to have been a nice guy, maybe had some nice ideas (the same could be said about some prominent figures in other religions). However, I also think he may have been misquoted and/or misunderstood on a series of points, specially considering the only written works about him and his life was written down a hundred years after his death. In fact, I think people who worship Jesus is missing the point. I don't say this to be disrespectful -- I generally respect other people's beliefs -- it's just an opinion.

I've got more to say on the subject, but I think that's enough for now.

One final note: Let's keep this clean. If you want to condemn me or anyone else for our opinions, please do it in a nice and civil way

- Gerry

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[Last edited by trick at 11-20-2005 01:38 AM]

jamie
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One final note: Let's keep this clean. If you want to condemn me or anyone else for our opinions, please do it in a nice and civil way

- Gerry

Well, my opinions largely mirror yours - Does this mean that I have to agree with you in a horrible and rude way ?

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trick
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jamie wrote:
Well, my opinions largely mirror yours - Does this mean that I have to agree with you in a horrible and rude way ?

Yes.

Alternately, you could also agree with me in an ecin and livic way, obviously.

- Gerry

Krishh
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Well, being an atheist, I believe Jesus to be an ordinary man, possibly quite a bit crazy, but well intentioned, and obviously a very convincing person, to gather so many followers. And definetly one of the most influencial man ever to live. Overall, I think he ment well for humanity, but yes, if a person like him did show up now, he would more probably end up in an asylum, than be held as a saviour to humanity, but most probably would end up just leading a religious sect somewhere.

Mattcrampy
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I think that the odds are that Jesus was misinterpreted. I reckon he was probably trying to say things that were just so far ahead of the disciples that they wrote down what they thought he was saying.

In essence, he was a 1st century Leonardo da Vinci: ahead of his time.

Although, now that I think of it, any Christians reading this thread might feel a bit intimidated.

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mrimer
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I like everyone's thoughts here! Cool discussion.

I'm encouraged to also chip in my thoughts on Christ's Second Coming. I read in the Bible what Christ said about his coming again: "For as the [sunrise] cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be" (Matthew 24). I interpret what he said to mean that when he comes, it will be an event as striking and unmistakable as the sunrise. That is, it wouldn't just be a guy wandering around somewhere telling everybody he's back.

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ErikH2000
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Krishh sums up my viewpoint pretty well. Jesus must have been an amazing guy, but I don't see him as a god or son of. It also strikes me that he was probably like a social revolutionary, because he spent much of his attention on the poor and said things like "It is easier for a rich man to pass through the eye of a needle than to enter the kingdom of heaven." And he led this big lower-class movement that threatened the powers-that-be. Even if he wasn't directly political, there must have been people around him that were trying to use his teachings to...

Oh, man, I'm going to start upsetting people again. That's enough out of me.

-Erik (agnostic son of a minister)

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TripleM
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We should really make this a proper poll, it would be interesting to see the proportions of the different religions.

Anyway, I'm precisely with Chalks. And I could probably say various things, but really, in my opinion people that believe that once upon a time there was nothing, then it exploded, and here we are, well, as somebody told me recently, that requires more faith than Christianity. Actually, I think there may be something in evolution, but not that it started by accident. Apparently, some scientists recently came up with the idea that the big bang was caused by a sound - funny, we knew that a long long time ago - its on the first page of the bible..

Oneiromancer
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TripleM wrote:
And I could probably say various things, but really, in my opinion people that believe that once upon a time there was nothing, then it exploded, and here we are, well, as somebody told me recently, that requires more faith than Christianity.

Well, when you put it that way, it certainly does. The whole Big Bang theory mostly came about because of measurements of the red shift of stars. It was found that the farther away a star or galaxy is, the faster it is moving away from us, as the observer. And this is in all directions. All these galaxies appear to be moving away from each other as time goes on--not just from us--which implies that as you go back in time, everything in the universe was closer together. (It isn't just that everything is moving away from everything else...the actual space between everything is expanding.) Go back in time far enough and everything comes together to a single point. And there is other evidence for funky things happening billions of years ago, like the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation, which I unfortunately can't remember much from my classes, so I will refer a Wikipedia article instead.

In any case, as I said, that's evidence for the universe being a single point at some point in time. There's not much faith among scientest back to that point...it all comes from measurements and calculations to match the data. Now, when people start talking about what happens "before" the "Big Bang"...yeah, that's what they believe, or I suppose you could say faith (although I don't think any astrophysicist would claim to strongly believe what may have existed before then). Some may think that there was nothing. To me, that would imply that something started it off...which might as well be some kind of intelligence. I prefer to imagine that the universe is continuously cycling, expanding out to a limit (which is determined by the amount of mass in the universe), then contracting to a point, repeating ad infinitum. But it doesn't have to be that way either, there's no proof for it...yet. They're still trying to measure whether or not the universe is going to eventually start contracting or if it is going to expand forever.

Anyway, back to the original question. This is one of my favorite quotes on the subject, by Stephen F. Roberts:

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

Game on,

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trick
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Ah, the creation of Life, the Universe, and Everything.

I've been wondering, if the universe did start with no space, was there no time either ?

I heard this little fairy tale once, about the "creation" of a universe. This universe existed without space and without time, so everything in it happened "at once" and at the same "place". This universe was also conscious, so it was all-knowing. However, this also meant that it was lacking local knowledge, or experience -- if you watch a movie by seeing all the frames at once, there can be no surprises or multitude of feelings, because you're not actually experiencing the movie, right ? However, you can do this if you look at individual frames, ie introduce time. So, to learn more about itself, this universe decided to split itself up into time, to keep everything from happening at once, and also space, to keep everything from happening at the same place. At the end of time and space, all the little pieces would be collected back into the singularity, so that it could truly know everything about itself.

Now, I don't think I believe this is how our universe was created, but I do think it's a nice little story

I also heard that, in quantum physics, it is actually possible for something to be created out of nothing -- one particle and one anti-particle -- it's just incredibly unlikely. Is this true ? If we have an infinite amount of time, probabilities doesn't really matter, since something just has to happen once in this infinite amount of time. So, if there was an infinite amount of time before the creation of space, it was bound to happen sometime, and since space wouldn't have existed yet the particle and anti-particle created their own ..

I'm not sure if I believe this either, but again, nice theory

Also, about the sound theory -- if the universe started with a sound, what made that sound ? Also, sound waves needs something to propagate through, they can't just fly around in nothing. But there was no space, so how could it ?

- Gerry

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Well, I guess that I will state my opinion as well.
I believe that one of the main reasons why people don't believe in Jesus Christ is because of the multiple skewed ideas about him. I have heard many, many different points of view as to who he is and what he is like. There are some beliefs that just out right scare me and would make me think differently if that was all that I knew about Jesus. That gets into a longer story than what what the purpose of this thread is about.
Down to business...
We all know of the senses of the body. We constantly talk of 5 senses and we all know that they can be mislead, faked out, and totally deceived. However, I believe that there is something else that we can tune into. Something more than a 'sense of the body'. That, I believe, is the Spirit. It will never deceive you. In the Bible, James talks about how to 'know' if something is true. How to, I guess you could say, know something through the Spirit. He said that you ask God, in faith, believing that you will receive an answer. I don't believe that this is an answer that that you will misunderstand as just a strange flutter of your senses. I believe that it is something that will help you to 'know'. I believe in modern-day revelation.
This is what I did. This is now I know. I don't blame anyone for not believing what I do. I don't condemn anyone for not believing what I believe. I also don't want anyone to think that I am on a soap box talking about how great I am for my belief. I hope that I didn't come across this way. I don't want to ruin any friendships that I have on this forum either. I just wanted to state my belief as well.

Chalks
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bradwall wrote:
I don't want to ruin any friendships that I have on this forum either. I just wanted to state my belief as well.

exactly.

as to the universe...I think that it is, and always will be, impossible to "prove" how it was made. I also think that the universe must have been created. Nothing else really makes sense to me. That's part of the reason why I'm a Christian. I think the Bible has the most believable and comprehensive explanation of creation, and various other truths.

This makes me wonder something though. Why would anyone be an atheist? I know some of you have said you are already. I've never really understood atheism. Why not just believe some religion? I mean, the worst that could happen is the religion you choose to believe is wrong. If it's right though...you gain everything.


edit: just wanted to say, hope this made sense...

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[Last edited by Chalks at 11-21-2005 03:54 PM]

Oneiromancer
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trick wrote:
I also heard that, in quantum physics, it is actually possible for something to be created out of nothing -- one particle and one anti-particle -- it's just incredibly unlikely. Is this true ?

I'm not completely sure about that. I know that when a particle and its anti-particle collide, they release a pair of photons (light particles, also known as "gamma rays") with an energy corresponding to the mass and speed of the original particle/anti-particle pair. Similarly, when two photons collide, there is a chance that they could create a particle/anti-particle pair. The particular objects created would depend on the energies of the photons, due to conservation of energy. If the photons were travelling fast enough to make, say, an electron/positron pair, but not fast enough to make a proton/anti-proton pair, then the extra energy would just go into slower photons. And it's all governed by probabilities, I think (not quite up on my particle physics much anymore), so even if the photons have enough energy to create a pair, it's not guaranteed.

So to sum up, particle/anti-particle pairs can be created by photons colliding, but as far as I know, not spontaneously out of nothing. One of the mysteries of modern science is why the universe seems to be so predominantly "normal" matter...why it's not half normal and half anti-matter. Perhaps we just aren't able to see all the anti-matter out there.

Game on,

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Schik
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Chalks wrote:
This makes me wonder something though. Why would anyone be an atheist? I know some of you have said you are already. I've never really understood atheism. Why not just believe some religion? I mean, the worst that could happen is the religion you choose to believe is wrong. If it's right though...you gain everything.

Wouldn't most religions frown upon people following their religion just so they could play the "religion lottery", hoping to win big?

Athiests don't believe that there is anything to gain. So to them, it's not a risk like it is to you.

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Chalks
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Schik wrote:
Wouldn't most religions frown upon people following their religion just so they could play the "religion lottery", hoping to win big?

Athiests don't believe that there is anything to gain. So to them, it's not a risk like it is to you.

yes, most religions would, and it's true that it wouldn't be a risk for any atheist (in their own mind anyway). That actually answers my question better than I thought possible. So maybe it's just me...I believe so firmly in christianity that I find it hard to understand why you wouldn't want to believe something.

Now that I think about it, what I'm really asking is, what does an athiests actually believe? You must believe something, right? Is it a belief in "science", a belief in self, or something else entirely? Maybe this is different for every athiest, but I've never asked before.

I'm not asking this to be rude, I'm just curious.

Oneiromancer
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Chalks wrote:
This makes me wonder something though. Why would anyone be an atheist? I know some of you have said you are already. I've never really understood atheism. Why not just believe some religion? I mean, the worst that could happen is the religion you choose to believe is wrong. If it's right though...you gain everything.

That's essentially Pascal's Wager. Amusingly, there is also an Atheist's Wager, which states:

It is better to live your life as if there are no gods, and try to make the world a better place for your being in it. If there is no god, you have lost nothing and will be remembered fondly by those you left behind. If there is a benevolent god, he will judge you on your merits and not just on whether or not you believed in him.

Both "wagers" suffer from similar logical fallacies, in particular the "false dilemma": that there are only two options and you must choose between them. Neither wager is worth basing your personal religion on, although they are interesting to consider philosophically.

Game on,

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Oneiromancer
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Chalks wrote:
Now that I think about it, what I'm really asking is, what does an athiests actually believe? You must believe something, right? Is it a belief in "science", a belief in self, or something else entirely? Maybe this is different for every athiest, but I've never asked before.

It would be different for everyone. At essence, I would say that most atheists believe in what they see, touch, etc. I've never seen a ghost, therefore I don't believe in them. Just because someone else may tell me they've seen a ghost doesn't make me believe in them either.

I don't know that someone can "believe" in "science". It's not really up for debate that there is such a thing as "science". I assume you mean the results of some scientific experiments or theories, such as evolution? I guess I still don't know how to answer that. I'd say that most people "believe" in gravity, but many aspects of gravity are still theories as well (it's the least understood of the four forces). Evolution is, of course, a touchy subject, one which I really don't want to get into because it will essentially devolve into people trying to convince others of thier way of thinking or belief. Unfortunately, sometimes it's really hard to explain how you feel without contradicting someone else's beliefs.

Game on,

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eytanz
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I'm a bit hesitant about entering this thread - but I'm pretty curious - so far, there have been two kinds of people posting on this thread: Christians, and people who don't seem to believe in God (or god) at all. I don't belong in either group (note that I'm not Jewish, either, by faith, though I am by ethnicity. I find Judaism a lot more palatable than Christianity, though). Who else in this forum believes in a non-Christian faith?

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trick
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I never said I don't believe in a "god" of some kind, I only said that I don't consider myself religious. I don't worship anything. There's no religion, that I know of, that believes what I do. I'm sure there are others who have similar beliefs, but the point is that my faith is a product of my own thoughts and experiences, something personal. But yes, I guess you could say that I believe in a non-Christian faith.

- Gerry

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[Last edited by trick at 11-21-2005 06:18 PM]

jamie
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Again, I'm with Gerry here - I'm not necessarily a disbeliever in a sort of higher power - I'm just not into religion.

Of course, this topic has strayed neatly into the situation in Kansas (I think) where schools are now being made to teach "intelligent design" alongside evolution in science classes.

I am of a scientific mind; however unlike alot of scientists, I don't disbelieve in something just because there isn't a scientific explaination for it -- fire would have appeared magic to man originally - and show a mobile phone to someone from the 1600's now, and see what their reaction would be.

The problem I have with this "higher power" theory, is that, if it does exist, how did IT come about ?

I believe, again, there would be a scientific & logical explanation, that is beyond our current understanding.



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Krishh
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Well, as to why an atheist: why not? Why should I believe in somthing that has absolutely no sign at all of existing? I could understand religions like Buddhism, which, save for all the reincarnation stuff, is more of a life philosophy anyway.

Actually I recently read an articly about humanism, and I realised that I am quite possibly a humanist. I belive that basic morales and ethics should be followed not because an omnipotent being will condemn you to eternal damnation if you don't follow them and eternal bliss if you do, but simply because this way the world wil be a better place for all of us to live our lives in. (And on the matter of human life: why do most religions hold it sacred if they believe it's just the shell of a soul that's destroyed, while the soul itself either gets a just afterlife or a just reincarnation. So why is this shell so important? To me there are few things more 'sacred' than human life, because I believe this is all the time we get.)

And on the matter of world creation: science believes in conclusions from facts. Fact: the universe is expanding. Theory: Big Bang. It's just a theory, but it's still the best one we've currently got. If you can give a better explanation based on the laws of physics as to why the universe is expanding, go ahead. And on the matter of what caused this Big Bang: sure, it's currently completely unknown what caused it, so it was just there. But religion states that a god was just there. And in my mind, a random concentrated ball of the universe just being there and exloding seems to me more likely then an omnipotent and omniscient being just being there, and then one day deciding to give a whirl at creating an universe.

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[Last edited by Krishh at 11-22-2005 02:42 PM]

Cascade
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Chalks wrote:
This makes me wonder something though. Why would anyone be an atheist? I know some of you have said you are already. I've never really understood atheism. Why not just believe some religion? I mean, the worst that could happen is the religion you choose to believe is wrong. If it's right though...you gain everything.

How can you "choose to believe" something? If you believe something, you think it is true. Whether you think it true or not is based on various things about it, and your attitude to those things. You can't just flip a switch and "believe" a religion.

Now you can follow the principles of a religion without believing it - is that what you mean? But that wouldn't work for Christianity, would it, because the whole point is that you dedicate your heart to Christ - your inner life, as well as your outer. (This is what I understand, anyway, please correct me if I'm wrong! )

So, to summarise... huh, what was the question again?

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jamie
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Yeah, I'm a humanist (and 'animalist', if that word can be used in context without any dodgy undertones!)

I'm a nice, helpful, kind person, just because that's what I am, not because I am doing it to please, or obey any higher power.

And, if there is an all loving God, when I die, I'm sure that my highly moral and honest behaviour in life will be enough to get me in to heaven, not because I did things out of religious fear!

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MeckMeck GRE
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Hmm... there are quite a few theories about who/what created the universe
and how. There is even a theory saying that the universe is just a computer
simulation of a higher intelligence which is a simulation of a even higher one... (matrix-theory)
I myself belief that the universe was created intentional by god, not by accident.
I know that this can´t be proven and this is why it is a belief.

jamie wrote:
Yeah, I'm a humanist (and 'animalist', if that word can be used in context without any dodgy undertones!)

I'm a nice, helpful, kind person, just because that's what I am, not because I am doing it to please, or obey any higher power.

And, if there is an all loving God, when I die, I'm sure that my highly moral and honest behaviour in life will be enough to get me in to heaven, not because I did things out of religious fear!

Jamie, its cool that you find it good to help other people. Today people often only
think about theirself and their money. But the last sentence is a bit... If there
IS the all loving god he wont look for people doing good things. He looks for people
who are free of mistakes (nobody) and people who transfered their mistakes to jesus
(many people). So you would be screwed in this case.

Krishh
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MeckMeck GRE wrote:
If there IS the all loving god he wont look for people doing good things. He looks for people who are free of mistakes (nobody) and people who transfered their mistakes to jesus (many people). So you would be screwed in this case.

This post might be insulting to some, but MeckMeck, you just brough Christianity into what was a discussion about religion in general (which did admittedly spring from your poll about Jesus, though), and I felt compelled to answer to your post.

Such a god wouldn't really be all-loving. He would be mistake-tranfering-people-loving. There's quite the difference.

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[Swivel comes in and hits everybody on the head with a two by four]

Interesting thread-poll. For me, this thread is like déjà vu. Yes, I have heard some of the arguments on this thread before. Actually, all of them. However, I’d hate to classify people into a particular group because, well, that’s just not something I’d like to do.

I wrote, in the questionnaire :
Religion: Protestant Evangelical Christian (NO! Not one of those!)

Yep, that’s me, but this is more generalized than it should be. Of course, I’m more messianic Jewish. Initially I was Jewish, but so called “converted.” Logically, this is:
1. The Jews are promised a Messiah in the Torah.
2. Jesus existed.
3. Jesus is the Messiah.

Statement #1 is almost unequivocally true. Statement #2 is considered to be true by a very large majority of people. Statement #3 is the object of this thread, and its veracity is debated.

So what do I think? Yes, Statement #3 is true. What I believe completely mirrors Christian beliefs, but is in the context of (what I belief to be) true Judaism. Also, I try my best to reconcile Christianity with science. So many interpretations…

About the kindness (or lack thereof) of God? Well, the Bible says that God is "slow to anger". This doesn't mean that he doesn't get mad.

[Everyone comes in and hits Swivel on the head with a two by four to try to knock some sense into him]


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