Oh hey, thanks! I wasn't expecting this.


It truly does. I say this through experience.


Your thoughts are in the right place, or should i say your heart? But when trouble comes, or when your good is paid back with evil, how will you handle it? The hard part is dealing with evil being paid for your good.


Ah, one of my main reasons to wanting to go to Heaven is to give thanks to God--you can't do such in hell ; although i deserve hell. Truly, God has been very good to me--so good that it requires praise for all eternity to pay Him back for it.

 

 

 

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That's called Pascal's wager, which has been abundantly refuted by various thinkers throughout history. Wikipedia summarizes a few a these, and I'll share them.

1. It argues from the assumption that a belief is simply something you can choose, like choosing a stock you hope to get rich from.

Related to this point, since you can not choose a belief, a "chosen" belief can't be a legitimate belief, and no all knowing creator is going to get duped by a believer who merely believes because he knows it would give him access to the riches of heaven.

2. It argues from the assumption that the creator is specifically Christian. Pascal's wager is still hopelessly unlikely, based on the sheer number of religions that exist (or the infinite different religions or ways a creator could exist that we simply don't know about).

I have more responses for you, but those are a decent start.

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You should really read up on your history. Nazism and Hitler's ascension, and policies had everything to do with religious fanaticism, which was used to rally and propagandize the public into wholeheartedly supporting his horrifying war atrocities. Crosses were painted on their planes and Hitler constantly talked of his work being the creators work, etc. etc.

There is just a staggering, overwhelming volume of literature that confirms this. You can start at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism_and_religion and then work from there. And that is probably the central reason that this was brought up, so your naming a few wars and saying those "weren't for religion reasons" misses the point. Religion facilitates extremism, opens up crowds to people and policies that try to align themselves with that religion and helps persuade people to do things they otherwise wouldn't do. Like support war.

As far as British Colonies, one of their main objectives was to culture and christianize the lands they conquered.

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I've been waiting to use this quote for a long time, here's my chance:


Atheism is a stance toward religious questions, but it in no way is a religion or does things a religion does. If atheism were a religion, it wouldn't be atheism.

And Thomas Jefferson never affiliated himself with any religion, but he was not an atheist. At the least, he was a deist.

 

 

 

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[1]Religious questions? I thought it was a stance against religious beliefs.
[2]Careful with this tiny part here, some might find it offensive (let those who have understanding, understand). But you must not have seen plenty of atheists to make such a claim.
[3]Then why is it still called atheism?

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1- or that. You phrased it better than me. No argument there!

3- Because it's not actually a religion?

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With all the religious wars going on today, i cant help but think the word would be more peaceful without religion. I think it'd be good if everyone would just believe that there's a Higher Being up there and live life according to their personal principles. Nobody should have the right to say the others' principle is wrong while mine is right. It's more like LIVE AND LET LIVE. More like, let's all believe that there's someone greater than all of us, then it's up to you to believe who He is. Nobody judges anybody, and nobody gets judged. Nobody has the right religion, nobody has the wrong one.

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Even it is not the issue here but belief is a choice by believer. They chose to believe in God and not to unbelief in Him. They chose in one belief and not in another. Every action for us is either our choice or we enforced to do that. You choose to go bed or continue awake. You choose to eat or not to eat. You choose to obey the law and rules or not. Arabs Moslem's when they conquered many places they gave people choice between entering in Islam or to be killed. They give our Egyptian ancestors a special treatment. They added one extra choice, either to Convert to Islam or Pay a big amount of money or to be killed. I think my ancestor were rich and they paid for their survival.

QUOTE(glenstein @ Jan 24 2007, 07:09 AM)

2. It argues from the assumption that the creator is specifically Christian.

I don't think anyone argue that the creator was Christian. Every believer know that the creation was long long time before Christianity.

QUOTE(glenstein @ Jan 24 2007, 07:09 AM)

You should really read up on your history. Nazism and Hitler's ascension, and policies had everything to do with religious fanaticism, which was used to rally and propagandize the public into wholeheartedly supporting his horrifying war atrocities. Crosses were painted on their planes and Hitler constantly talked of his work being the creators work, etc. etc.....
And that is probably the central reason that this was brought up, so your naming a few wars and saying those "weren't for religion reasons" misses the point. Religion facilitates extremism, opens up crowds to people and policies that try to align themselves with that religion and helps persuade people to do things they otherwise wouldn't do. Like support war.
As far as British Colonies, one of their main objectives was to culture and christianize the lands they conquered.

I know lot of history. Also I use logic , reason and effect frequently. When we say that war was for a religion reason, it mean that they went to war for enforcing a religion or spread it, or for defending something related to the religion. I don't know that happened except in in two occasions[you can remind us with any other] :

First was the Arabic invasion from Arab Venezuela to North Africa, Asia and South Europe to spread Islam by the sward.[Please don't argue that fact otherwise tell us how and why Arabs went there].

Second was the crusade war to protect the Christian objects in Philistine. But everyone knows why Hitler went to war and occupied territories under Christianity.

If Hitler used a symbol which is that funny sort of crosses it does not not mean he went to these countries to make them Christian. The British, Greek, Sweden and other Countries have a Cross in their flags. If Hitler acted against the Jews it was for two reasons :

First because as they consider themselves the chosen and selective nation which contradict Hitler's Nazism [ i.e the German National Distinction].

Second because Hitler has found from Jews, blackmails awarded by promised their own land by Britain in the Philistine.[Belfry's Promise]. So you confuse CAUSE with Effects.

AS saying the Britain colony was for spread Christianity is wrong it was not. It was fight and competition between France and Britain. Both of them are Christian. Britain was in Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Emirates, Iraq, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and people there were not converted to Christianity. France was in Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Mauritania and people there weren't converted to Christianity. But that doesn't mean the ministries and Churches found a way to invite some to Christianity or spread the Christian Culture through hospitals and schools. This called EFFECT. So you are again confuse CAUSE with EFFECTS.

I am Australian since 20 years and know that Britain came to Australia mainly to bring crowded criminal to there. Moreover it was lest France took it first since French Navy was around.

QUOTE(glenstein @ Jan 24 2007, 07:09 AM)

And Thomas Jefferson never affiliated himself with any religion, but he was not an atheist. At the least, he was a deist...

It doesn't matter what he was believe?. Many people aren't speak about their belief including me. I only speak about that in this Forum only and without verses or extreme.

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iam a christ on the paper but for myself i dont have any belief and iam living fine with it. i think i have my own way to come along with everything and i dont think religion is bad or should be abolished. i mean if it helps people to manage their life its okay but i was fine with managing my life by myself so far

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That is false in the completest possible sense. If you believe something is factually true, there is no choice about it. Truth has no equally valid alternative that you can just flippantly decide to replace it with. There is no choice about what you observe to be true.

You can't "choose" that a color you see in front of you is red and you can't "choose" whether a god you observe and feel to be real exists. You can't "choose" to not be hungry and you can't "choose" not to be tired, even if when you eat and sleep are determined by you.

There are facts of reality coming at you from every direction and you can't "choose" things into and out of existence. Thus, if someone actually truly believes based on their experience in the real world that there is a god, then god is there, you believe, and there is no "choice" about it.

Even if, supposing hypothetically a belief were a choice, its fundamentally different in nature from just telling an atheist they should choose to "believe" just to be on the safe side (which was your point #1 in response to the atheist). There is no legitimacy in a non-believer believing in god, just in case. Thus, you have no argument when you hint that an atheist should switch over because "what if you are wrong"?


Unfortunately, this misses the point. Insofar as a Christian thinks the argument is valid for believing in Christianity, they are wrong (and regardless of whether you are going to admit it, the Christian specific argument is unmistakably relevant and applicable because this point is argued by Christians, and everyone arguing it intends to prove their religion, most commonly Christianity, right).

The same goes for any other religion."Just in case" doesn't help anyone know whether they should be believing christianity or judaism or perhaps believing in some as yet unknowable deity). Believing "just in case" is still a useless argument because there is no way to know what to believe in.

You changed the subject. I will show you where you did this.

Between those two "Here" tags is where you changed the subject. Religion can be a negative component of war. Religion can help make war happen. There could have been 1000 wars that weren't about religion but that were nonetheless facilitated by religious extremism. And Hitler, (which you denied but were proven wrong about) is a perfect example. As I said in my still unanswered quote:

It doesn't have to be the central cause of the war itself. This is the point you are ignoring. It's a perfectly valid argument about the potential vices of religion.

I could go on, but this is too obvious to have to explain, so I'll stop here for now.

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[b]I think the disscusion withglenstein is going in cycle. This is my opinions:
1. Beliefs is different than Facts that why we call it "belief".

2. Choice is in any action or event. Any action is happened either by choice or was enforced to be done. Belif is a choice i.e you believe in something or not. to believe in your own theory or other's theory and reject the others. To believe in Darwinism or not.

3, I don't suggest to the Athesist that he is to beleve as a safe matter. I speak about my status and answer their claim. I said I believe for many rerason [whetever right or wrong] and if I was wrong as they claim I don't loose anyhing. If I was right then it is OK that I did.

4. We all know except the wars to spread Islam or of Crusade, were wars for Economic reasons and Colonisations was for Economic benefits either directly or to secure path to the main points [e.g Suez Canal, Temperory ports to way to the End points e.g occupation of part of Yemen to the way to India]

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I was probably being uncivil, but unfortunately there is not a ton of progress being made in this discussion so I'm bowing out now.

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