i don't know, i was raised greek orthodox and i have all but completely stopped worshipping. i kinda got to the point where i was like, what is the difference between believing in god and jesus, and having an imaginary friend. they are all made up essentially.

also, when studying history and how they would threathen people with charges of heresy for ideas that contradicted their teachings like "the earth is the center of the universe" dinosaurs never walked the earth. and it just kinda occured to me, these are all made up stories...they made it all up! how would moses part the sea? how did noah put 2 of every animal on the ark. if adam and eve where the first man and woman and had children, who did their children have children with? eachother? it is all full of holes. lots of religions are. for instance, in hinduism and buddhism, to achieve nirvana and so on, you have to abandon all material wants and desires, but...you would be doing this because of your desire to transcend right? kinda makes it impossible. they are just, well stories taught the naive ignorant masses during times of hardship to try and get them to believe this life is worth living because if they do it right, they will be rewarded in the next/afterlife.

to tell somebody that they are all lies kinda invalidates the meaning of their existence. if we all knew that there was no afterlife, and we were behaving and living a life of morals, for nothing, would we suddenly stop being good and resort to anarchy?

anyway, just ponder this, all religions emerged from times of conflict and uncertainty, mainly to bring peace to their chaotic regions.

 

not necessarily, for me i live my life to be loved, because that feels really nice. I need someone else for that, and i need to treat them right to get it. I want to obtain a big piece of property to grow lots of pot and vegetables on, and to have soap box races on, and for that i need cash and to get cash, i have to work with my fellow man. I also want to help further my species in this universe, cuz if not, humanity dies and that would be a shame.

I want to live as long as i can, cuz this life feels good when i have lots of seratonin and other chemicals dripped into my bloodstream. Feeling good, comfortable and free from fear of anacharists and like people, drives me to work with my fellow man to get where i want.

 

exactely dave, nobody can tell you what happens to you after this lifetime so make the most of this one and find whatever it is that makes you happy while your here, so long as you don't destroy the happiness of others.

 

i say nothing happens to me after this lifetime, and that's why i live like i do. if i did "know" what could happen to me say a heaven/hell, then i may live differently.

 

i kind of have the nihilistic view of things in that none of this matters, in the end we are all reduced to nothing and we will all be forgotten so i might as well do what i can to be happy while i'm here. much better than trudging through and being miserable for an afterlife that nobody is certain to be there.

 

I love people like you two. You say religion MUST be wrong because of things we don't understand. Evolution must be FACT, but you kinda turn your head the other way when Creationist punch holes in your religion. I dont care what you say, You have just as much blind faith in Evolution, than any other christian does in God. Its ok for you not to understand everything. But if a christian dosent understand everything, they are morons.

I could put up just as many things "holes" about Evolution, than you can about religion, but I must be wrong. You must be right.

I think the MAIN reason why people don't believe in God is because of the hypocrasy(sp?), they see in most Organized Religion, but, its ok for you not to understand everything, but Creationist cant.

 

cant we all just get along *hugs everyone*

 

haha dude.
i was like, why is this person posting about someone named dave from seatlle.

btw all the above avatars are nice. we got captain murphy, vash the stampede, and the masterchief. oh and i think thats a yaris or something...lol

 

from what I've noticed about dave and citizen they both seem to have some personal hatred for religion. I think whether they'd like to admit it or not have had some incident that made they turn their heads on religion, but that’s just my observation and I could be wrong.

 

I'm glad to see this site is finally moving again. I stayed away yesterday because it litteraly took me like 10 minutes to open and post.
oni424, there is no reason why I didn't mention Buddhists, just like there is no specific reason why I did mention the few I mentioned. I was picking a few to make a point. There are a few people on this forum who go out of their way to attack Christians, but that never seems to happen with any other religion here. I'm glad it doesn't. Even though I may not believe what you believe, I have enough respect for you and your faith not to attack it. It's pretty obvious that there must be a reason for the total preoccupation these paople have with Christianity. I'm just curious what it might be.

 

That is exactly my point in posting this thread in the first place. Dave has gotten very predictable. Nearly everytime I see him post I say to myself, "Lets see how long it takes him to twist this one around to have something to do with religion so he can Christian bash again."
I usually don't have to wait long.

 

you left zoroastrians out too

asking dave to do a critique of every major religion on a car enthusiast's website
doesn't seem reasonable

 

He has even stated that he had studied religion for some time (Christian schools and such) so I really think there must have been some thing that set him off.

This is something I've noticed with many people who are against religion. Hell I am one of them, I won't go to church because of things I've experienced but I still am christian.

 

I just want to ask the evolution people something....

If evolution is true, why do we still have monkeys?

 

oh no you didn't. This thread will forever be jacked with their reasoning for that. There's no coming back now.

 

The same reason we still have fish and frogs, not everything evolves.

Personally I am kinda in the middle. I do believe in a higher power, I don't believe the earth was created in 6 days.

I can't believe that when we die that nothing happens and we are just gone, heaven, afterlife, reincarnation.... I think that something is going to happen, I don't know what, but our essence or soul whatever you want to call it has to go somewhere??

I hope.

 

I don't have a problem with all of these side trips, but if this thread gets too far off of my orginal post topic I'm probably going to bow out. Many of those topics have been beat to death. I get tired of debating them over and over.

 

Sorry matt... just funnin....

 

No problem. I know you are. The problem is, once you stir the hornet's nest, it's hard to stuff them back in there.

 

it's something called speciation.

feel free to believe whatever you want, science doesn't have all the answers either...but tell the missionaries to stop knocking at my pagan door.