Just to leave you all with this last piece of food for thought:

Jihadism and denial.

Perhaps. I do not know that I am right, I can only draw conclusions based on what I think is right. This applies equally to you.

Exactly! And is human judgement not what decides - no, creates good or bad? (Don't know why I'm asking you this, knowing you'll simply answer "no" :roll: )

I have foundations for facts. Truth is different from one person to the next. Of course, depending on religion your views may differ, but the fact that different people have different convictions is proof of this.

Not an answer, I'm afraid.

What's so absolute about monotheism?

But what is the cause of this vendetta in the first place? Everything has a reason.

Based on those percentages, you must be pretty darned clean.

If you have read my posts you should have noted that I never defended the Nazi institution (apart from the smart uniforms) - I simply defended the individual's right to be judged on individual basis.

I see. And who teaches you from the Koran? If you are self taught you surely bring your own views into it, just like when I first read the Bible it was really just so I could use its quote to argue with Christians. I have since regained my respect for Christianity, though.

They thought they were right. Just like I think I am right. Just like you think you are right. We are only right if we base our conclusions objectively on real facts, though, and that hardly ever happens. Facts are easily distorted here, ommitted there, and hence we draw our conclusions based on what we've got - which is scarcely the pinnacle of objectivity.

So you're saying anti-Semitism over the ages was perfectly justified? Interesting. My point here, though, is that people don't think. Individuals think - people are cattle. Sure, we're all individuals, but we don't all specialize our critical thinking in the same areas. Just about everyone is capable of good, critical thinking in some subject - but no subject is the field of specialization for many.


Huzzah! :D

I was trying to make a point about the gullibility of people. I've said it time and time again, but does anyone ever listen? Nooo. What I'm actually saying above is, people believe what they want to believe. If you hate Bush, you're likely to believe any rumour stating how stupid and inept he is, and how everything he does is bad. You are then not likely to believe the rumours that he is actually doing good.

What if the initiator had never hated in the first place? Why did he hate in the first place? But that's not the most important thing. The most important thing is not bickering about "who started it". The African Americans certainly didn't start, and yet as you all know, Martin Luther King had a dream.

But cause and effect is indeed important to understand one's opposition, and that's what I've been advocating all along. Why do they attack us? What is the cause of their hatred? What must we do to stop the HATE? Not the terrorists, mind you, but the HATE. The terrorists are but the symptom of a disease. You can treat the symptom all you want, but it's not going help you get well. You must cure the disease, and the disease is - summed up very, very shortly - hate. Forget revenge and pride if you want peace.

Oh no, you must never ignore hate. That could have disastrous results. But if you meet a bull head-on you're going to end up with a head-ache. There are very efficient ways to combat hate, if you're willing to compromise. Never underestimate the power of forgiveness.

Nothing ever does.

Just as well. I have less than four hours to clean up this pig-stye before my parents come to visit. I'm beginning to regret my decision to drop out of archaeology. :(

No more reading! This house isn't going to clean itself, you know. But that's next on my list of things to invent. :know:

WTF ? Dubiya dines with muslim organizations in honor of the ramadan ?
The West is surely going insane.

So you are saying that only if God reveals himself are we able to know that He exists? That is in my opinion a very poor reasoning, Avon Lady...we humans have intelligence for something else than for building tools and improving our comfort :nope:

The existance of God can be demonstrated through evidence and reasoning at last to a 99%, the only 1% left being that he is invisible to us. We can't force him to make himself visible, but we can conclude through pure reasoning that God exists. There are more complex argumentss, but suffice to say for the purpose of this little discussion, that just the evidence of any effect having a cause is enough to prove that. Where is the cause to the visible effect the universe is?

There are natural laws common to all societies all over the history, ain't they a proof of what is expected from us in terms of behaviour?

Do you know any country, a single one, where killing, hurting or stealing a fellow citizen is not punished?

Pretending to use God as an excuse for imposing a certain vision/rules on earth is the most stupid thing the human mind can conceive. God will judge all of us individually according to all religions, and for what we have made ourselves, not for what we forced others to do. So if we force others to do something, where is their chance to proof their will to obbey God? Nonesense... :doh:

I posted this in another thread but it got side-tracked:

So a few questions, where did it all start?

We read of times before Christ where people worshiped stones, trees, hills and effigy's etc, it is a general consensus that they were wrong, so who says the God/s that a lot of people today worship are right?

I asked this on a different thread, which God is the right God, is it the one you were brought up to believe in by your parents because they were brought up to believe in him and so on?

Who are the Gods and where are they, where do they exist, where is Heaven?

Who is the Devil, and where does he exist and is there more than one devil, we don't hear much of him till someone does something wrong, then it is his work that caused it, then when something good happens it is Gods work?

If we hear of something very unusual and overwhelming and perhaps unexplainable we say it is a miracle, so when Jesus was born to a virgin it was unexplainable, so it was a miracle, in those days there were no scientists as such so it must have been the work of God.
Did they have the foresight to jump on a bandwagon and say Jesus is the son of God?

Have any of you played Chinese whispers, where you get 6 people, 5 go out of the room then you give a message to the remaining one, the next one comes in the room and the message is passed on and so on, by the time it gets to the 6th person that message is totally different, but we believe what was said thousands of years ago?

I once asked this to a minister and he said 'The message hasn't just been passed on by word of mouth it has been written in the scriptures' I asked him but when did they decide to write it all down, after it had reached the 6th person and after, his reply was, I can see you are not convinced, I wish you well, he shook my hand and went on his way.


I'll add a bit more:

Biblical reliability.

Many derive a large support for the belief in a “God� from the New Testament. The story of Jesus as the Son of “God� is the lynchpin of Christianity.

However, there are no eyewitness accounts to the supposed life of Jesus. It appears that the four known Gospels were taken from the accounts of Paul. Paul never met Jesus. There is no credible ex-Bible supporting evidence for the miraculous events of this period. It is all very suspicious hearsay, full of inconsistency and inaccuracy mixed with made-up astounding occurrences not recorded elsewhere. The alleged proceedings took place in a time of total superstition when ‘messiah’s’ were a dime a dozen. The people were scientifically ignorant and prone to harsh Roman rule and were in need of reprise from their situation. Imagine for a moment if on the touted death of Jesus, the dead Saints rose from their graves and mixed with the population. The Romans would have their version of the CIA investigate this wonder in an effort to make their armies invincible to death. Why have we not read about this in history? Walking on water and feeding the multitudes etc. would have evoked the same result.

It was not until the second Council of Nicaea in 325 CE (Common Era) that Jesus was declared divine and this done by force of vote by the murderous Constantine. The interference to the Gospels was a result, with many being left out to promote an image that was acceptable to the authorities. Since then, the Bible has been altered to suit in similar fashion. This is to be expected, and again Ockham’s razor is in total harmony.

Sorry for the long post.

Not really when you're trying to win hearts and minds...

Matthew 11
[27] All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him.


Correct...You will Never and I mean Never "Know" God until He chooses it to be so....
God knows whom "Really" seeks Him out...and those who seek Him shall find Him it is said.Ya can't fool God..He knows who is seeking truth and who is doing lip service.

And read what it says up there...ya gotta go thru the Son..ya gotta realize and accept what was done by the Son.
Passion of The Christ is a good movie there bro if ya haven't seen it.Your Ticket is paid for already in blood.

I have to stop you right there. What evidence? I am not aware of anything that can be taken as evidence of a godly existence. Infinity cannot be explained by "God". And indeed, which god? There are many to choose from, and in my humble opinion, all of them man-made.

I have heard some claim that there's a 50% "probability" that god exists, which is in itself mathematically unsound, but you are the first one I've ever come across to claim that God can be demonstrated through evidence to at least 99%.

Those who claim 50% do so based on the fact that "Does God exist?" can only have two answers, yes or no. And sure enough, not knowing anything about it either way, there's a 50% chance of guessing correctly, but that does not mean there's a 50% chance that God exists. If I have a bag of red and blue marbles, what is the probability of picking a blue marble? Impossible to determine, so long as we don't know how many red and how many blue marbles there are. But not knowing, we still have a 50% chance of guessing correctly, even if the red/blue ratio is 6/9. So without knowing how many "God-marbles" there are, compared with how many "nothing-marbles" there are, it's all guesswork.

And why does it have to be a yes/no answer? If the answer is "yes", it still doesn't answer which god it is, or if there are indeed more than one. And what if there's a third option, a powerful force of somekind, but without personality or concern for us? We simply don't have enough info to work with, though. If science does not have the answers, it does not mean ipso facto that some sort of religion must be correct. So we have unanswered questions, so what? There was a time when science couldn't explain planetary orbits either, but as we have since discovered why, it just goes to show that we can't draw any useful conclusions based on what we don't know.

Evidence and faith are two different things. You have the faith that god exists and have made reasons for yourself why you believe. Evidence is something you can touch, and feel. No one has evidence of his existance. I for one do not believe anything until I see it. Therfore I do not believe there is a God. I can also conclude through reasoning that there is a 99% chance God does not exist the 1% being margin of error. So it all comes down to faith doen't it ;)

I agree Zepheron.
All this talk of a virgin giving birth, who said she was a virgin, then when the baby was born because people believed she was a virgin then it must have been a miracle, people in those days were very easily led, in fact they still are.
It was all word of mouth put to simple minds, let us say just for a minute all this never happened and there was no religion anywhere, you would more believe in science and technology, and if someone came along and said there was a god they would be laughed at.
Also this only took place a few thousand years ago, what happened before that, where was god then during the prehistoric ages.
Then there was the Greek gods, what about them, gods of war, gods of fire, gods of this and that, there were gods everywhere?

Western culture gone too far ? In light of clash...
 

It's a pity.
The longer this thread with its very interesting subject runs, the more it goes off topic.
This thread should not be about the question if a God exists and if so, which one.
It is about human convictions. Humans are religious beings anyway. The basic of our knowledge is belief or conviction, as the last postings of this thread clearly show. If you believe there is/are no God/gods, than that's also a conviction.

The real point is that in Europe - and much of the Western world - we happen to live in - as it is called - the Judeo-Christian tradition, that has shaped us all irrespective of our personal religion. For a long period this tradition expressed itself in the omnipotent Roman Catholic church. Through critical thinking by philosophers from (within) this church (!), the Renaissance brought new knowledge of the lost Greek thinking about philosophy and politics. Struggling, with, within and sometimes even without the Catholic Church, this introduction of Classic thinking led to Humanism, an erosion of the political power of the Catholic Church and the rise of Protestantism.

Slowly but surely basic human values as we know them in the Western world started to evolve from what was becoming a pan-European culture. The philosophy of the Enlightment and its political consequence, the French Revolution, heralded the basic separation between State and Church. This was to the benefit of both, the state could defend the freedoms of which Christian and Humanistic thinking profited.

For centuries the Church has been a 'keeper' of those values. However, during the last century a tragedy occurred that greatly eroded the moral power of European values. I mean the disasterous though short-lived rise of the basically irrationalistic cultural countersurge of Fascism and National Socialism (Nazism), with all its consequences.
In my opinion this could well be one of the causes of our loss of faith in Western values and in our cultural right of existence.
Look at the word "nationalism". Normal idom for an identifying force in almost all non-European countries, National Socialism manipulated its meaning in something terrible like national supremacy over others (which true nationalism should not be). Being nationalistic, like I am, is considered political incorrtect to the utmost, especially by people who don't know the true meaning of the word. We should all be... yeah, what? The obvious alternative is "Multiculturalists"...
Nationalism in the true sense means the right of yours and everybody else's nation of self-determination, keeping its own values and identity intact.

What we urgently need is a European nationalism to keep our European values and identity intact.
Should we all become Christians?
No, only if we are convinced (like I am).
Should we all be aware of the Christian values as I described them above, that have shaped our continent and spread over the Western world, mostly as a blessing?
Absolutely.
Should we be critical of our Western values?
All the time. But please, not the criticism that I so often (sadly) see in this thread. A criticism based - it seems - on nihilism. Doubting everything including our culture and ultimately ourselves. I promote a criticism that is aware of the superiority of our values.
Superiority? Should I be banned from the forum?
Yes, superiority. Like Jewish and Greek values were superior in ancient times and therefor survived. Our criticism should be constantly shaping and adapting them to higher standards, resulting in better rules and laws, a better economic and social policy, an inspiration for the European citizens.
But then, doesn't superiority of Western values imply inferiority of other cultures?
Not necessairily. Among many good and noble thoughts, among many workable political systems, among many good footbal teams, one can be superior. If you don't believe in the superiority of your own set of rules and standards, you should switch to another set of values...
Do these superior European (Western) values tend to suppress other cultures?
An interesting question that can't be answered with an outright 'yes' or 'no'. It depends on the cultures involved. The basic human freedoms of our culture are a garantee for the liberty of all, as long as our set of values - including its liberties - are respected by the other culture involved.
That's why so many people from different cultures are immigrating to and settling in Europe, North America and Australia, the Western world.
That's why so many people from the Muslim culture have problems settling in Europe, North America and Australia, the Western world.
Simply because the mainstream Muslim culture can't (yet) cope with the values of the West and wants to impose its values on our society...

Your first sentence Abraham about it being off topic, was what you did to one of my other posts by trying to steer it back to what you wanted it to be about when a lot of the subject was what I posted about, then you kind of admitted it after someone else pointed it out, not this time my friend.

I got thinking about a lot of this last night and really all these threads do is help get things off our chest, there are a lot of good points from everyone, but we still don't fully agree we never will.

I know it is only a discussion and up to now we haven't had any name calling and people have been respectful and polite, but we will never agree.

I could raise 3 points in a thread, the next guy might agree on point #1 but not 2 & 3.
Then the next person might agree on point#2 but not 1 & 3 and so on, then they might introduce point 4 and on it goes but we will never fully agree.

I would also like to add, in these threads and posts I do respect you all.

Western culture gone too far ? In light of clash...
 

I did not steer the subject back to where I wanted it to be, I just got back to the topic as originally defined. Personally I find it very difficult to discuss a subject that is not properly defined. It makes it also difficult to agree or disagree on certain fundamental principles. Sometimes many of us do agree on something.
Whether God exists, whether his existence can be proven, how He reveals himself and how he relates towards ancient Greek gods is all very interesting and certainly worth debating, but hardly contributes to this topic subject.
So why not concentrate on the subject at hand and start a completely new thread about whatever we want to get off our chest?
I consider that polite towards the 'owner/starter' of the thread.

I respect all that participate in a positive way in our often fierce discussions on often touchy subjects. I certainly do not intend any lack of respect towards you, I just don't follow your path in the general discussion.

Is that why you continue to discuss religion then Abraham?
On that other thread a lot was discussed about religion not just my post, so give your message to the rest of the posters who have discussed religion here why didn't you mention it earlier?
I think it is because you don't like my views.

Western culture gone too far ? In light of clash...
 

I didn't log on earlier and my initial posting was not specifically mentioning you or your arguments...

That has hardly anything to do with staying on topic, has it?
Anyway, I gave you my argumentation and whether you accept it or not is really up to you. What else can I do? Tell you that I meant it?

By the way, I think this discussion is getting more and more boring for others, but well, that happens when you go off topic...
:D

Is there a vote on that????? :huh:

@Abraham,

Yes I agree, it has become boring.