Tonight (or this morning wherever you live) a rather interesting debate about religion (Christianity specific) broke out on wc. Because world chat is limited to speakers I invite the people interested in the topic to join here on forums where that limitation does not apply. I'll be requesting a lock later tonight.
Jesus loves me but if I don't love him back I suffer eternal torment? Sounds like a pretty bitter ex to me.
I didn't believe in God for a long time. Now I'm pretty sure he exists, but I think religion isn't the best path to worshipping God. I believe religion is a tool used for controlling the behavior of the masses.
If you don't wanna join then don't. Plenty of intellectual (or want to be intellectual) people play the game too. Why limit their thoughts?
My thoughts are as follows; I'm agnostic. I follow Christianity and believe in a single maker, but I disagree with a lot of parts of the bible and Christianity as a teaching. I also believe in things like the Big Bang or crunch theory. They make sense logically. Who's to say they can't mix? "God" being all powerful can influence those things. Who's to say God didn't "make" the Big Bang happen?
The question that bugs me on all sides of creation, whether Big Bang or a magic poof poof of gandalfs wand while he yells "avada kadavra" is that there is no explanation of what came before. We can all agree nothing can come from nothing right? Something has to be there before stuff can emerge. Nothing can just appear out of nothing. Understand? So how did it all start if there was nothing to create the stuff that created it? Unless Stewie and Brian time travel out of the continuum and reclock the damaged time machine return pad to send them home and create the universe by making the Big Bang. I don't see how this could work.
That's my huge problem Siera, and part of the reason of my confusion and agnosticism. A lot of theories rely on some external force (like God for example) to influence the stuff, even theories like the Big Bang. A lot of other theories also rely on infinity but that's another topic. It's a big place we live in and we'll never have all the answers.
I'd have to respectfully disagree with you on the two mixing. If you believe the bible to be true then God was directly involved in the making of everything, he didn't just let go and let "nature take its coarse".
I don't believe something can come from nothing, but I refuse to assign the inception of the universe to a being or life force or energy without having any evidence to substantiate. Religions assign Positive unknown events to God because they don't have an explanation. Negative events are either the work of the devil (which the all-powerful God doesn't seem to have the power to stop) or God working in 'mysterious ways'
I said I follow Christianity but I don't believe in or agree with a lot of the things the religion states. I'm agnostic. Not Christian.