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

[Col7777]

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.

[August]

Originally Posted by Sixpack

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

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

[Iceman]

Originally Posted by Hitman

So you are saying that only if God reveals himself are we able to know that He exists?

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.

[Kissaki]

Originally Posted by Hitman

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.

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.

[Zepheron]

Originally Posted by Hitman

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

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?

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

[Col7777]

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?

[Abraham]

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...

[Col7777]

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.

[Abraham]

Originally Posted by Col7777

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 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.

[Col7777]

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.

[Abraham]

Originally Posted by Col7777

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

Originally Posted by Col7777

I think it is because you don't like my views.

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...

[Type941]

Originally Posted by Happy Times

Do we say a woman must be uncovered?

Is there a vote on that?????

[Col7777]

@Abraham,

Yes I agree, it has become boring.