Within the broad topic of spirituality and religeon, and without mentioning what religeon you espouse, what do you, in the depth of your heart believe is true? Please keep all discussion friendly... or at least courteous. To kick it off: I believe that God does not lie. Exact words can be mucked up in translations but God, being good, does not tell a falsehood.

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It's complicated.

I am now seventeen years old. My father died when I was seven, my father died of cancer. sadly, I do not even remember him. At the time I lived in Armenia with 2 sets of grandparents. Weird things happened at the time: stuff was falling off the cabinets almost hitting me, once a huge bucket of boiling soup spilled on my leg and gave me really bad burns, marks of which I still bear. Sometimes a cassette player started on its own and played my fathers' favorite song, sstopped at the end and started again. My grandparets, being superstitious, thought, that my father was calling me "up" and went to the church with me and christionized me. Without asking me anything. Though, I would not tell them much at the age of seven, I guess. Anyway. Since then I had a feeling inside that this is not what I need. Even though the weird (quite scary now, as I think about it) stuff stopped really soon, I do not think, there is any possibility that my fathers' death and these events were connected in any possible metaphysical way. Anyway. I do not believe in God. I am not agnostic, I do not believe that there is any superior power that is kinda everywhere and governs us. I believe that the Universe is extremely rational all by itself and does not need a push to continue its life and cellestrial evolution. All I believe in is that humans, that is, us, are capable of making too much up in order to gain power initially, and then the people just followed the first believers due to the crowd instinct.

Sorry, if I offended anyone. If you wish to go deeper in the discussion, please reply, I will be more than willing to answer.

 

 

 

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I am a follower of Jesus Christ. He is my God. Therefore I believe and follow His Word. So if you wish to know what I believe, look at a Bible.

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But wasn't the bible written by man? It even has some articles that should have never been in it (like the last one predicting the apocalypse) - then how do you know that all the rest are there because of His will?

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It was written by many men yes. However, it is completely inspired by God. As far as falsly placed articles go (in this cas you suggested the book of Revelation), I ask you one question. "As the Written Word of God, would he not want it to be completely true, acurate, and perfect?"

I highly doubt that the bible has any false documents in it, as it is basically Gods love letter to us. Because of His will, all it contains must be true.

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I believe in God and what He has revealed. I believe the Abrahamic religion is the most consistent with life when compared to other religions. I believe everything has a reason for its existence—whether or not we know about it yet. I believe it is perfectly logical to believe in God. I believe in the Messiah, Jesus, and his resurrection. I'd continue, but i can't mention everything i believe in all in one go.


Could you elaborate on why it shouldn't have been included? The Book of Revelation (a.k.a. the Revelations of John) goes into deep description on what the Book of Daniel mentions concerning the Last Day, so if the Book of Revelation shouldn't have been, then so shouldn't have the Book of Daniel—but they both exist. Is it because it talks about an ending with judgment? Is it because you believe it preaches falsehood? I can't think of any objective reason why it shouldn't be included.

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I guess, I have not clarified it enough. I watched a documental a few weeks ago on the Discovery Channel, and it said that scientists have examined the chapters of the bible and found out that the Book of Revelations was written a few centuries later than the others. And John, the author, was not actualy the John we know, but rather a prisoner that was set on an inhabitant island by emperor Caesar. If you put the name of Julius Caesar into the roman numerals you get a few numbers that end up adding up to 616, and the mistaken number 666 is actually untrue - the book of revelation in its original does not speak of 666, it says 616, but the middle digit was hard to read, I guess. It describes not the Last Day, but the Last Battle. And the description of it is the description of one of the vast valleys near Israel.

Of course, you may believe whatever you want but the paragraph above is backed up by scientific data. I'll try to find the name of thet film.

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I've already gone at it with truefusion before in an entirely friendly way, but here I go again.

There is no god. We are organisms evolved from a single celled protozoa that was synthesized through basic macromolecules. The big bang just happened, there was no creator, it just was. Just as you believe your creator just was. Everyday more and more is explained through science, refuting evolution is becoming less and less reasonable. If the bible cannot explain to me why the creator just was, then it cannot contradict my beliefs of the being bang just being. Humans are the handiwork of evolution, and after 3.8 billion years we are finally intelligent enough to understand that.

There is no right and wrong, black and white. Only gray. Reality is entirely subjective. Nothing is ever certain because people have their own interpretations of everything. Take the OJ Simpson trial, ten people were taken and asked what happened and ten partially or dramatically different stories were produced. I believe humans are by nature good, and want what is right for everyone. I think that it is in everyones best interests to better ourselves.

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No need to find the name of the film, i've heard about this plenty of times (I think it was even mentioned on the BBC website, too). I have been skeptical for the following reasons:

1. How does one know that the manuscript that reads 616 is the original, when there is only one that reads 616 surrounded by many 666 manuscripts? That is, i have seen no objective reasoning on why to conclude that the one that reads 616 is the original.
2. Caesar existed during the time of Jesus, so that would mean that if this John existed a few centuries afterwards, this John lived for a few centuries along with Caesar.
3. It assumes that John had a grudge against Caesar for placing John on the island; that is, they assume Caesar is the beast.
4. Early church "fathers" were talking about this book near the middle of the 2nd century and on ward (Book_of_Revelation#Early_views). Meaning, if we were to count a few centuries back, that would mark John before 100 B.C., making the book of Revelation written before "the others."
5. I have not seen how they came up with a numerical translation of Caesar's name nor the reasoning behind it.

(There are other reasons for my doubt, but i can't remember them...) The only scientific data i see that can come from this is the way they dated the manuscript. I say, leave Science for non-religious things, and leave Theology to religious things. And although the book of Revelation mentions a "last battle," it also goes into deep description on how judgment will occur, the signs that come from it, where the Jews and Gentiles will be placed, who will get tossed in the "lake of fire" (a.k.a "the second death"), etc.—some of which can also be found in the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament, where Caesar was non-existent.

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my personal belifes run along the lines of taoism. it was mentioned in the first post not to espouse a preticular religion, but the beilifes of taoism are very difficult to explane without interjecting the word 'tao', which according to the tao te ching is a word lao tsu used to describe the indescribable. for all i know the word 'tao' could have been someting he made up on the spot...

my belifes however, returning to the topic of discusion here, are mostaly without dogma and tend to sound like the advice of someone who upholds holistic practice. i dont belive, well i wont say belive, but i dont worry about offending a god or gods, i dont worry too much about demons (although i have had friends who have been attacked by them). for the most part i worry about doing what is healthy for my mind and body. keeping this in balance with a amature effort to be ethical i tend to arrive at something that is like taoism explained through christianity. this is mostaly due to the fact that i was brought up a christian, and as the bible says "train up a boy according to the way for him and he will not turn away from it." so i've foun that through all the meditation and spiritual experiences i've had, at my base level of understanding my ideas on things revert to being in terms of spritual beings used in christianity. i notice that my mantra use, marrow breathing, and other obscure taoist practices are greatly strengthend when i allow my mind to use the imagery of angels, archangels, the holy spirit and an a soveren, almighty god.

the intresting thing i've noticed about all this led me to make a theory, and i belive that this theory holds the summation of my belifes. the theory is that our lives, our ways of thinking, and our desires like buddha said are the cause of our suffering and bar us from enlightenment. and in this way i've noticed that the self-created prison our minds our in is like a pyramid. looking at all the religions of the world, christianty, hinduism, paganism, taoism, satanism, ect. i notice many things incommon especialy in the words and experiences of their highest sages and prophets. like a pyramid, the higher one raises ones mind the more one ends up at the top of this pyramid. and at the top is a core concept, a form of imagery, a zenith! that is open to interpitation by he person experiencing this height. in the east certain buddhas we're said to have reached enlightenment through different senses, taste, smell, sight and hearing. in the west we have people experinceing unity with god, and in india there are gurus who practice yoga, which means unity with the divine and are doing miricles that are on the same level as jesus.

the vast majority of peoples minds are operating on a very low level, as if they were asleep, and looking at the worlds religions, almost all of them have instructions for spiritual development and evolution if not some way to become a vesel for the will of a divine being. the reason i chose to follow the offering of taoism is because in my oppinion taoism is very versitile, and because of its lack of any major dogma, one is able to find peacable understanding of those who do strictly adhere to specific dogmas.

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