Problems with Belief when it comes to a Christian and Islamic God...

[Robert.Evans]

I truly find that belief in the God of Christianity and Islam to be odd.

Both systems of belief believe that God wanted to save everyone...or at least save who want to be saved, and punish those who sin or don't believe in him. Those that are saved go to paradise and those who don't, end up in hell - the whole "afterlife" shebang.

He is supposedly all-powerful and all-knowing and eternal.

With tens or even hundreds of millions praying everyday, at different times of the days (remember, there's time zones), and with hundreds of thousands if not millions of people dying each year, then God would have to listen to all these prayers and to judge each soul after have died.

God being eternal and being outside of time and all, where do God have anything else to do, other than listening to prayers, and judging and sentencing each soul to destined afterlife?

This has to be time-consuming, not to mention a very boring job to do.

In the real world, each court, especially in big cities, have bus-loads of bus-load of cases to be heard, and they all required for each case to be reviewed and processed before any hearing, and if necessarily trials.

Don't God have better things to do with his time than judging souls or listening to prayers?

Perhaps, 1400 or 2000 years back, the world population was probably much smaller than today. But now with population heading towards 6 billion people, I don't see how God could really spend so much of his time with humans.

Both the Qur'an and bible make God out as someone who play at being personal confessor, judge and creator, and that's what make both Christianity and Islam such ridiculous religions.

What's your 2-cent about this?

My two pennies worth is that God is reflective and has offspring of his own self. The simple answer then is that there are more than one god and so all these things you mention are not a problem. There is still only one God, just reflections of its own Self. We see that replicated here on earth. Go back generations, and we are all related, and we all come from one, and one singularity of the big bang which is also reflective of the divine.

 

[Robert.Evans]

The whole "outside of time" is usually argument that theists make about God

Has to be an 'outside of time' otherwise we have continually regressive time.

 

[Robert.Evans]

First of all, I don't think God is real at all.

If there is no divine-intelligence, then it must be luck. Either you have huge faith or a bag to put over your head as regards creation.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

If there is no divine-intelligence, then it must be luck.

Again with the false dichotomy!

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Has to be an 'outside of time' otherwise we have continually regressive time.

Eh? There is no reason why time shouldn't extend infinitely backwards and forwards.

 

[gnostic]

If there is no divine-intelligence, then it must be luck. Either you have huge faith or a bag to put over your head as regards creation.

No, I don't have a bag over my head. The problem is that you do have one over your head, but don't recognise it that are not seeing.

You would call science as "luck". I would call it "probability".

Luck and probability are not the same.

Science deal with probability.

Probability work by learning form repeated observations, Robert, of both past and present outcomes. By investigating and studying what science do, to understand the mechanic of how nature works, they gain a better understanding of had happened in the past and what is available in the now (or present), and they can work out what future outcomes are possible. That's probability.

Religion have the same quality and properties of luck, because luck is the outcome of not understanding the unknown, so they placed their faith on what they believe and wish could happen. Luck and religion are just two faces or sides of the same coin, and that "coin" is represented as superstition.

Like religion, people use luck because they rely on ignorance and false belief, fear and false hope - that their belief would affect the outcome in their favor and they hope. That's what superstition is, with regarding to luck.

Religion is exactly the same. It uses a person fear of the unknown (like the fear of God), and hoped that their faith in this god would be enough to affect god would favor them with this false hope of paradise. That's religious superstition in the nutshell.

In the game of chance, like at a casino, a person who rely understand the game thoroughly and using probability to predict his possibilities and probabilities, will have better chance than a person who rely on "luck".

 

[Lyndon]

What nonsense!!!!

 

[Hawkins]

I truly find that belief in the God of Christianity and Islam to be odd.

Both systems of belief believe that God wanted to save everyone...or at least save who want to be saved, and punish those who sin or don't believe in him. Those that are saved go to paradise and those who don't, end up in hell - the whole "afterlife" shebang.

He is supposedly all-powerful and all-knowing and eternal.

With tens or even hundreds of millions praying everyday, at different times of the days (remember, there's time zones), and with hundreds of thousands if not millions of people dying each year, then God would have to listen to all these prayers and to judge each soul after have died.

God being eternal and being outside of time and all, where do God have anything else to do, other than listening to prayers, and judging and sentencing each soul to destined afterlife?

This has to be time-consuming, not to mention a very boring job to do.

In the real world, each court, especially in big cities, have bus-loads of bus-load of cases to be heard, and they all required for each case to be reviewed and processed before any hearing, and if necessarily trials.

Don't God have better things to do with his time than judging souls or listening to prayers?

Perhaps, 1400 or 2000 years back, the world population was probably much smaller than today. But now with population heading towards 6 billion people, I don't see how God could really spend so much of his time with humans.

Both the Qur'an and bible make God out as someone who play at being personal confessor, judge and creator, and that's what make both Christianity and Islam such ridiculous religions.

What's your 2-cent about this?

Basically human intelligence is too low to understand God's deeds. Humans don't even capable of possessing a correct time concept. In science time is rather a delusion.

That said, God's plan is to build an eternity called heaven. Only those humans/angels capable of living forever with a sin-incompatible God are allowed to be in this eternity called heaven. God thus sets up a standard, that is His Law, to openly and legitimately qualify humans to enter heaven. In the case that all humans are deemed unqualified by this Law set forth, He made a self-sacrifice through Jesus Christ to make possible that He can bring those He deemed worthy to heaven.

Since you have no idea of what God's doing, so you conclude that He's doing the judgment stuff for fun. The worst part is, you make a decision on not to believe Him by such a lack of idea of what He does. That doesn't seem to be a wise move when your own unreliable intelligence is used to make such a decision. Especially under that circumstance that He already warned you about this in Genesis.

In Genesis, it is said that if you choose to rely on your unreliable knowledge and intelligence, the same day you eat of it the same day you shall surely die.

 

[viole]

If there is no divine-intelligence, then it must be luck. Either you have huge faith or a bag to put over your head as regards creation.

Do you think your divine intellgence/luck dichotomy applies also to children who painfully died of cancer?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Lyndon]

That makes about as much sense as blaming Obama for it!!

 

[Robert.Evans]

Do you think your divine intellgence/luck dichotomy applies also to children who painfully died of cancer?

Ciao

- viole

The point was, I think, that if creation is not brought about through some form of intelligence, it must be luck. If there is another, please tell me. In that light, I don't understand the end of your comment.

 

[Robert.Evans]

No, I don't have a bag over my head. The problem is that you do have one over your head, but don't recognise it that are not seeing.

You would call science as "luck". I would call it "probability".

How did the subject of science get into this? Would I call science luck?No. I would call it a very sucessful way of deciphering the physical world.

Luck and probability are not the same.

I agree.

Science deal with probability.

Probability work by learning form repeated observations, Robert, of both past and present outcomes. By investigating and studying what science do, to understand the mechanic of how nature works, they gain a better understanding of had happened in the past and what is available in the now (or present), and they can work out what future outcomes are possible. That's probability.

Science does not always work on repeated experiments or observations, not anymore.

Religion have the same quality and properties of luck, because luck is the outcome of not understanding the unknown, so they placed their faith on what they believe and wish could happen. Luck and religion are just two faces or sides of the same coin, and that "coin" is represented as superstition.

Big difference in the two. Theology is part of grace and that means you know; nothing to do with luck.

Like religion, people use luck because they rely on ignorance and false belief, fear and false hope - that their belief would affect the outcome in their favor and they hope. That's what superstition is, with regarding to luck.

The only person that can say that a believer is ignorant or has a false believe is someone who does not understand and therfore ignorant themselves.

Religion is exactly the same. It uses a person fear of the unknown (like the fear of God), and hoped that their faith in this god would be enough to affect god would favor them with this false hope of paradise. That's religious superstition in the nutshell.

If you are saying it is superstition in the sense that God does not exist, you would have to prove that - which you can't

In the game of chance, like at a casino, a person who rely understand the game thoroughly and using probability to predict his possibilities and probabilities, will have better chance than a person who rely on "luck".

There is no luck in divine-intelligence, only in someone not believing intelligence is involved in creation; they have to believe that luck (ultimately) will have the power to "naturally" bring about everything we see (and don't see) without any form of inteliigence involved at all. That requires either a head in a bag or a very faith filled mind that is so in love with the world and science that they can't see any further.

It appears to be a concept you have difficulty with. If there is no intelligence involved in creation, then ULTIMATELY it is luck. That requires HUGE faith!

 

[gnostic]

How did the subject of science get into this? Would I call science luck?No. I would call it a very sucessful way of deciphering the physical world.

I agree.

Science does not always work on repeated experiments or observations, not anymore.

Big difference in the two. Theology is part of grace and that means you know; nothing to do with luck.

The only person that can say that a believer is ignorant or has a false believe is someone who does not understand and therfore ignorant themselves.

If you are saying it is superstition in the sense that God does not exist, you would have to prove that - which you can't

There is no luck in divine-intelligence, only in someone not believing intelligence is involved in creation; they have to believe that luck (ultimately) will have the power to "naturally" bring about everything we see (and don't see) without any form of inteliigence involved at all. That requires either a head in a bag or a very faith filled mind that is so in love with the world and science that they can't see any further.

It appears to be a concept you have difficulty with. If there is no intelligence involved in creation, then ULTIMATELY it is luck. That requires HUGE faith!

You didn't understand my reply.

Luck and religion have a thing in common: SUPERSTITION.

They both rely on SUPERSTITION. And SUPERSTITION used fear, ignorance, false belief and false hope to promote either religion or luck.

 

[Robert.Evans]

You didn't understand my reply.

Luck and religion have a thing in common: SUPERSTITION.

They both rely on SUPERSTITION. And SUPERSTITION used fear, ignorance, false belief and false hope to promote either religion or luck.

I do not use the word "religion" much. So, theology and the believe in intelligence as being the instigator of all things has nothing whatsoever to do with superstition, nothing. It is fact.

 

[Mackerni]

I do not use the word "religion" much. So, theology and the believe in intelligence as being the instigator of all things has nothing whatsoever to do with superstition, nothing. It is fact.

Calling intelligent design fact is the complete opposite of faith. Gnostics do not have faith, yet it takes others to believe them and have faith in them. All the worlds religions started from a Gnostic. If you sincerely believe you know the truth, and are not tied to any one religion, I suggest you start a new religious movement as soon as possible to spread your Gnosticism.

I thought myself that I invented a new type of gnosis until I found out that all the core essentials to which I believe already exist from early 20th century Russians that called their faith Cosmism. Cosmism is no longer a faith but a destiny of humankind. The philosophy is all that I ever wanted in a philosophy. I'm going to study this until I'm somewhat knowledgeable with the matter. But that's just me.

 

[First Baseman]

I truly find that belief in the God of Christianity and Islam to be odd.

Both systems of belief believe that God wanted to save everyone...or at least save who want to be saved, and punish those who sin or don't believe in him. Those that are saved go to paradise and those who don't, end up in hell - the whole "afterlife" shebang.

He is supposedly all-powerful and all-knowing and eternal.

With tens or even hundreds of millions praying everyday, at different times of the days (remember, there's time zones), and with hundreds of thousands if not millions of people dying each year, then God would have to listen to all these prayers and to judge each soul after have died.

God being eternal and being outside of time and all, where do God have anything else to do, other than listening to prayers, and judging and sentencing each soul to destined afterlife?

This has to be time-consuming, not to mention a very boring job to do.

In the real world, each court, especially in big cities, have bus-loads of bus-load of cases to be heard, and they all required for each case to be reviewed and processed before any hearing, and if necessarily trials.

Don't God have better things to do with his time than judging souls or listening to prayers?

Perhaps, 1400 or 2000 years back, the world population was probably much smaller than today. But now with population heading towards 6 billion people, I don't see how God could really spend so much of his time with humans.

Both the Qur'an and bible make God out as someone who play at being personal confessor, judge and creator, and that's what make both Christianity and Islam such ridiculous religions.

What's your 2-cent about this?

I find your disbelief in the God of the Bible odd. Join the club.

 

[Mackerni]

I find your disbelief in the God of the Bible odd. Join the club.

Why is it odd to believe or not to believe in any Gods at all? Religion is free-reign. There's millions of people across the world who have a faith that doesn't connect to any religion - it is their own. I used to have that until I discovered the plethora of secular philosophies in humanism.

I find your belief that the disbelief of the God of the Bible is odd is odd as well.

 

[First Baseman]

Why is it odd to believe or not to believe in any Gods at all? Religion is free-reign. There's millions of people across the world who have a faith that doesn't connect to any religion - it is their own. I used to have that until I discovered the plethora of secular philosophies in humanism.

I find your belief that the disbelief of the God of the Bible is odd is odd as well.

Well, I am 100% sure the God of the Bible does exist. So surely you can understand that I would find it rather odd that anybody would not believe in Him...

 

[Mackerni]

Well, I am 100% sure the God of the Bible does exist. So surely you can understand that I would find it rather odd that anybody would not believe in Him...

Then you do not have faith, but knowledge. You are gnostic.

I don't believe in the Christian God. There's a lot of reasons not to. I could easily list a hundred reasons but I'm sure someone else has already.

 

[gnostic]

I find your disbelief in the God of the Bible odd.

Not disbelief...

..."dubiousness"...or, try "improbable"...try "the miracles fall under the supernatural, therefore I am quite skeptical of this...or that.."

Miracles, like Jesus walking on water, or stopping a storm with words. Or like the talking serpent (Genesis) and talking donkey (Numbers), which would under the category of FABLE, or MYTH. Or angels are keepers of snow and dew, and these are snow and dew being stored in "storehouses" (JOB), or morning stars singing it praise to the glory of God (again JOB). Or stopping the movement of the Sun in the sky, so that the Israelites can defeat their enemies (JOSHUA).

Of course, we have the whole six-day creation, and how there were morning and evening for 3 successive days, and yet there are mornings without a Sun (Genesis). And worse still, Peter writing a metaphor about a day being LIKE a thousand years, and yet CHRISTIANS would actually taken it literally.

All these if read literally would defy reality, nature and physics. But if taken metaphorical, these actually have values.

There are too many things in the bible, that doesn't make any logical sense, and that defy nature or physics, just showed that the authors didn't understand nature. This is why they are called "miracle" and "faith", not reality.

Faith, like luck is based on trusting the superstition. Robert.Evans can deny that his belief in theism being nothing more than superstition all he want. But that's what he and generally a lot of believers rely on his own and on others people's superstitions to bolster their claims that God is real, and yet cannot provide a single REAL EVIDENCE, to back it up, except to say "I believe, therefore it is..." mentality.

You are Catholic, so you should know church history better than anyone.

The church did some great works, but also did a lot of damages to people's lives, by promoting their brand of "Christianity". In the name of God, Jesus or even the Church, they used other people's fear and ignorance against them - to manipulate them, to control them, and exterminate them, if need be. And that fear and ignorance have a word for it - SUPERSTITION.

It was superstition that they started the witch-hunts and tormenting those they have labelled "heretics": the Inquisition, the Albigensian Crusade.