[Guest]

It seems there is a lot of controversy over this topic on Brainden.... Understandable... Well I just mean spiritual as in God but also as in ghosts and things. What is your opinion?

[Guest]

I added a slightly more generic plea 2 mine...sence I have never experienced your kingdom...

THANK YOU anything will help you know! In fact I like your Earth spirit on even better than mine. We should spread that one instead.

[Guest]

THANK YOU anything will help you know! In fact I like your Earth spirit on even better than mine. We should spread that one instead.

your kingdom, as well as all the other 1's out there, R covered by mine...I just didn't wanna leave any1 out...

[Guest]

your kingdom, as well as all the other 1's out there, R covered by mine...I just didn't wanna leave any1 out...

Good Idea! Your Right... I agree. Well my paranets are making me go to bed now... so cya 2morrrow!

[Guest]

sleep in peace...

[Izzy]

This kind of thing doesn't always start out as the result of a hallucinogen...

Here's another way it happens

1. A random thought, I'd liken it to a parasite, creeps into your mind. You do not question it, because it has disguised itself as an axiom.

2. The brains logic processes then begin to build upon the axiom, creating a new vision of the universe.

You suddenly up your guard, a little twitch in the bushes? No, your brain tells you, it's one of them.

Seems a bit... dangerous, no?

Experimental hallucinating > quite real brain delusions.

[Izzy]

Still atheist, but Izzy posts had me thinking.

Keep it that way.

[Guest]

R U a believer?...if not please stop mocking us...

This is not to mock. I base all of my evidence off facts, not opinions.

How do I classify this as fact?

Personal experience.

(Disclaimer) This does not necessarily mean that what you believe is not true, I'm merely stating a way that some personal beliefs occur.

[unreality]

*quoted CuteSparkelzGirl here*

I wish there was a forehead slapping smilie. Did you even read all of this? Do you understand it? I believe in God, but the important thing is not to run out unequiped and expect to get anywhere.

Seek first to understand.

First, seek to understand your own beliefs. Be willing to make changes where changes are due. I have grown up my entire life in church and I can tell you that there is alot of crap that gets thrown in during Sunday school. Not all of it is truth. I had to go through a horrible process of deconstruction in order to get to the core of what I believed, after discarding the excess junk. But dont let that discourage you. Truth can be found. I believe that God exists, but alot of things that they say in church are not true. Read your bible, and not just what you are told to read. Test the information. Read online analysis of particular passages and how various passages relate to each other. Look up word definitions and root words. Look up literal translations. Greek and Hebrew do not always translate as cleanly as the NIV and NKJV make it look. Contemplate your views often. Do not let any belief go untested. You must have a firm foundation, and you can not build a firm foundation with crap.

Seek to understand others. One of the best things I did was I looked up Atheist Sites. Look at their views and the comments that they have. Seek to understand their arguments. I guarentee you that many Atheists know the Bible better than you do. Seek to know it better than them. You may not always have a response right away, that is ok. It is good to allow some of their ideas into your mind. They are not stupid and their believe in the non-existence of God is not without reason. It is sad that many christians' beliefs in God are without reason and they expect others to be the same way.

Apologetics is also an intersting topic to look up. But do not try to argue something that you do not fully understand. It is good to see that you are interested, and I encourage you to keep trying.

very well said

[Guest]

This is not to mock. I base all of my evidence off facts, not opinions.

How do I classify this as fact?

Personal experience.

(Disclaimer) This does not necessarily mean that what you believe is not true, I'm merely stating a way that some personal beliefs occur.

that line of your post bout a noise in the leaves sounded a little bit like U were mocking us...if not then I am sorry 4 acusing U...I just seem 2 get teased alot 4 my beliefs in faries and such...especially at my age...

[peace*out]

After reading 'The Mists of Avalon', i've come to a partial conclusion.

Up to page 30, it shows you...

how silly the cristian faith is.

You kill any non belivers

you cannot worship other gods - the egyptions had many gods, but not Christains

In the face of God, we are all evil little sinners

theres more, but that's all i can remember

so now ^^ im having a little discussion. I do belive there is some higher being (always have), but i have not quite settled if it is God or not (again - that is an always have thought...).

I belive in a parallel universe, spirits, destiny - basicly i believe in the unbelieveable, Think maybe the unreal are real.

[unreality]

"unreal"ity at your service

If you believe in a higher power, believe in nature, the universe, life, beauty, order and chaos, balance and cyclity, axioms and randomosity, fractals and math, reason and imagination, love and motivation, and again chaos and beauty and order and balance... if all that is a "higher power", then I most definitely believe in a higher power

I believe that any noncontradicting universe that can exist, does exist in a logical sense because it's consistent and thus, well, it exists. What I mean by that is, say you imagine a world like Flatland, not from the original book but the logically consistent and scientific vision composed by AK Dewedney. Because this universe is imaginable with consistent and sensible laws of physics, it exists, even if its lifetime passes from conception to dissolution in milliseconds as the artifact of someone's mind... time is relative, so why not?

[Guest]

After reading 'The Mists of Avalon', i've come to a partial conclusion.

Up to page 30, it shows you...

how silly the cristian faith is.

You kill any non belivers

you cannot worship other gods - the egyptions had many gods, but not Christains

In the face of God, we are all evil little sinners

theres more, but that's all i can remember

so now ^^ im having a little discussion. I do belive there is some higher being (always have), but i have not quite settled if it is God or not (again - that is an always have thought...).

I belive in a parallel universe, spirits, destiny - basicly i believe in the unbelieveable, Think maybe the unreal are real.

What is the Mists of Avalon? I will have to look it up. It definitely has some things wrong, or at least incorrectly stated.

[Guest]

What is the Mists of Avalon? I will have to look it up. It definitely has some things wrong, or at least incorrectly stated.

I believe it's a book :3 *continues to lurk*

<(^-^)>

[Guest]

....the mists of avalon is a book about the female's side of the king arthur story...it is a great book for those who believe in the earth spirits...not so much for christians...I've read it 5 times and mow own it...

Edited March 19, 2009 by Atlantis

[Guest]

well here is what i have to say.

I am a Christian. Have been since i was 8 and i always will be.

I believe God created everything, the heavens, the earth, and the universe. I wouldn't be able to believe anything else. (I'm stubborn like that )

There are several cases where the bible has been proven right several times, it's never been proven wrong...well the Christian bible anyway. Just look it up on google, yahoo, msn, blackle, Jeeves, Ask.com or whatever other searchengines there are out there. *make sure it's been edited by some1, like an article or something like that, otherwise it's hard to tell whether it's legit or not because any1 can make a website.

Christ is not dead, he rose after three days and then ascended into heaven.

Also, Just because one believes in God doesn't make them a member of that religion. The bible says that even the demons believe in God and tremble at his name.

One last thing. a lot of people say they are Christians. this kind of turns a critical eye toward them and some might assume thats what Christians are like.Well, the term Christian means "Christ Like". So idk why some say that they're christians when they aren't. Well that's all i got to say for now.

until next time.

[Guest]

...thank you 4 your side of it all...but 2 correct U...[idk if this is actually in the bible or not]but Jesus is not the light skinned, blue eyed person in all the pictures...everyone around that time would have had darker skin and most likely brown eyes...not 2 say U R wrong...just the pictures...

[Izzy]

There are several cases where the bible has been proven right several times, it's never been proven wrong...well the Christian bible anyway.

Go to a search engine of your choice. Find me a compelling argument. Post it here.

[Guest]

...thank you 4 your side of it all...but 2 correct U...[idk if this is actually in the bible or not]but Jesus is not the light skinned, blue eyed person in all the pictures...everyone around that time would have had darker skin and most likely brown eyes...not 2 say U R wrong...just the pictures...

oh, yeah, i know that. i mean cmon he was in the Isreal area, so yeah, he was not "white" as most pple say. That's just the dark ages interperetation of Jesus

[Guest]

Go to a search engine of your choice. Find me a compelling argument. Post it here.

I'll try my best i'll PM it and post it here

Edited March 19, 2009 by No1slight

[Guest]

here's the link courteous of Ask.com

it's this link...

feel free to look at this page

Edited March 19, 2009 by No1slight

[Guest]

here's the link courteous of Ask.com

it's this link...

feel free to look at this page

Hi No1slight, thanks for that link. Unfortunately I can't seem to find anything that constitutes compelling argument though I must admit I haven't trawled the whole site for it. I've read a couple of bits that looked interesting but found them to be full of holes. The site initially starts from a position of "this is what we believe, now let's try and find evidence to support it" which is always a bad sign, but let's see if any evidence was found.

[spoiler=Proof of Science']This had to be worth a look!

We start with "Statements Consistent with Paleontology" in which the book of Job mentions two dinosaurs, or is it just a hippo and a crocodile? You'd think that if dinosaurs coexisted with humans at that time, it would be a big enough deal that it would warrant a bit more of a mention, and perhaps a little less ambiguity. Are we to throw away all fossil evidence simply because nobody is quite sure which two big animals are being referred to here?

"Statements Consistent with Astronomy": The Bible says there are a lot of stars. Science says there are a lot of stars too. Wow!

The Bible says one star is different from another "in glory" (which presumably means that some are brighter than others, a fact which is clearly discernable with the naked eye, though apparently people in the first century AD would not know this )

.. and so on. Mainly what it boils down to is that the Bible has succeeded, on several occasions, in stating the bleedin' obvious.

[spoiler=Messianic Prophecies']Ah yes, here's an interesting one! The gospels do indeed give an account of how Jesus fulfilled many messianic prophecies. And these are independent, reliable, first-hand accounts, right?

Consider this:

At that time there was a political need for a messiah, and a great incentive to cast Jesus as the messiah and show that Jesus fulfilled these prophecies. Take the prophecies concerning Jesus' lineage, for example. Matthew and Luke are both kind enough to list Jesus' lineage so that we may see his descent from David (and hence Eve, Abraham and Judah, also prophesied). Only trouble is, the names in the lineage don't match. Oh yes, and by my count, there are 27 generations from David to Jesus in Matthew, and 42 in Luke! They can't possibly both be true, though if Jesus' lineage was known you would expect to see it listed correctly, probably in all the gospels. The only plausible explanation is that Jesus' lineage was not known, and hence they are both made up. Why would they do such a thing? To demonstrate the fulfillment of a prophesy, of course! They even go as far as fulfilling the virgin birth prophecy, even though this contradicts the aforementioned prophecies since Jesus would have no male lineage. Whoops! When you think about it, there is no way that the accounts of Jesus' birth could be in any way accurate. Which independent eyewitnesses provided these accounts? Luke's description of events is in direct contradiction to known history:

"¹In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. ²(This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) ³And everyone went to his own town to register.

⁴So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David."

Too much detail, Luke! The only census that took place while Quirinius was governor was a local one, which occurred after the death of Herod. The idea that for a census, someone should have to return to the home town of an ancestor who lived about a thousand years earlier, is utterly absurd anyway (on the other hand, being born in Bethlehem was another prophesy, so the story needed a reason to put him there, however implausible )

The originators of these gospels were clearly not at all averse to using unverified (and as it turns out, untrue) stories in order to make it seem that messianic prophesies had been fulfilled.

The later stories of Jesus are probably based on real events, but there is no reason to believe that they are not similarly embellished. As the website states, "The earliest New Testament manuscripts date from the second century (100-199) AD". These are not first-hand accounts, they are legends written by people whose parents were probably not even alive at the same time as Jesus. Given the political need for a messiah, there is no reason to consider them any more historically accurate than the stories we have about Robin Hood, for example. I'm sure such a man existed, but what we truly know, outside of popular myth, is very little.

At this point I've stopped reading through that website since I couldn't really devote the time to refute absolutely everything on it. But honestly, all you have to do is take a critical look at this sort of thing in order to reveal it as complete hogwash. It seems too many christians are all too happy to look and say "OK, there's a lot of stuff written here that claims to be evidence, I'll just accept it as such". Is there something genuinely compelling there or elsewhere that I have missed? Please point me to it if there is.

[andromeda]

Oh My God... are we still doing this. There are a lot of threads discussing this!

Do ghosts really exist!

Paranormal, etc

Theism discussion

Religious debate

Do you believe in hell? Why?

Atheist discussion

Religion and history relationship

And there are more topics that are more specific.

I understand the importance of God in peoples lives, but believing in something doesn't make it real!

Edited March 19, 2009 by andromeda

[Guest]

Hear is the real deal folks.........

All of life is energy.

All things have energy.

Energy never dies.

Energy is continuous. Never ending.

When we light a fire we change energy. but it is still energy.

When we reduce all atoms down to its individual parts we see a space inbetween.

The space is enegy, keeping all parts in order.

God is the space inbetween.

God is everything.

God is everywhere.

God is everone.

You are God. Or at least part of the string....

We are all part of the collective energy.

Some are positive, some negative most possess both qualities.

Even the Earth has a north and south pole.

It is all part of nature.

As you have a beginning and end, so do the Universes.

So life as WE know it will end but the energy will never end.

And... by nature energy will give birth to new life.

Life without end....

That is the nature of God.

If a black hole gets dence enough it will explode into a new universe.

Life recycles!

We are close to the end.

So love as much as you can.

Hold on to the positive.

Dont judge others.

and smile its all good.

[Guest]

Sounds good and all except for the bit about god. Could have gone w/ out that. But its your opinion, so you go ahead and live by that, I won't meddle in your beliefs even I think its just a fantasy.

[Izzy]

Okay, looking at the website and skipping over the anti-proofs Octopuppy has already done, here we go.

"Of the events that were to have taken place by now, every one happened just the way they predicted it would" sums it up nicely. Because the article also states that many of the prophecies can be supported through archaeology, I wonder why theists only use this resource when it's helpful for them. During the time the bible was written, it was claimed the Earth was only about 6000 years old. Science was essentially non-existent back in the early CE days, but current archeological research has discovered that the Earth is actually about 4.5 - 4.6 billion years old, and was said to be created 6 (5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 7?) days after the creation of the universe, which we've found to be between 15 and 20 billion years old. If the bible were really written by an omniscient being, surely these errors wouldn't have been included. From this, we can conclude that the bible was actually written by some racist and sexist man, ignorant about science and the world in general.

Here you can find other parts of the bible that just don't hold up. Unfortunately, I don't know anything near enough about the bible and history in general regarding bible prophecies and their reality. I think it's safe to say that since we already know the bible was flawed, and all prophecies that did come true were coincidence (thought I suspect not many actually did), while the rest were never accounted for or verified.

To be honest, I think the rest of the 'arguments' fall apart with what I've included in the spoiler. It's essentially just all 'the bible is true' stuff, and we can clearly see it's not. It's not even consistent with all the books.

Edited March 19, 2009 by Izzy