The Religion Discussion

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

some perspective
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=462746

[MG Man]

ah duane, thank you for showing us the greatness of allah! for he created ALL of this with no effort just to show us how truly and magnificent he is!

[RBphoto]

Well science favours Islam on the creation of the universe.....










Started with a big bang

[MG Man]

no my brother, Islam favors believers...science is the product of allah and favors his magnificence

[AdamB]

Megadoc/Dspike,
If you apply the SAME level of criticism to the authenticity of the Bible as you do to the Qur'aan and Hadith, then you would reject the Bible as you do the Qur'aan.

Also, if you apply the SAME level of FAITH / OPTIMISM to the Qur'aan / Authentic Hadith as you do to the Bible, then you would accept the Qur'aan / Authentic Hadith as you accept the Bible.

If you compare your basis for acceptance, then you would see that the Qur'aan / Authentic Hadith fulfills a higher criteria for acceptance.

BUT MAYBE YOU PREFER TO HAVE FAITH IN "A HOUSE BUILT WITH STRAW" RATHER THAN "A HOUSE BUILT WITH BRICK"!!

IN SUMMARY, IT IS WHAT YOU "CHOOSE" TO HAVE FAITH IN!!

[d spike]

...but Hagar was also his wife, that's what the bible says "he took her AS HIS WIFE."

So... have you figured out as yet what that meant?

GENESIS CHAPTER 16 NOW Sarai Abram’s wife bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.
2 And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai.
3 And Sarai Abram’s wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife.
My point was that is IS STATED in the Bible that Abraham took Hagar AS HIS WIFE (TO BE HIS WIFE).
You can twist and turn the meaning as you wish (which is what Christians are generally accused of in relation to the wording and meaning of the bible) but the Bible said she was his wife. Whoever says otherwise, is possible accusing a great prophet (Abraham) of illegal sexual intercourse?? Or was it legal / permissible then...BUT NOT NOW??!!!

Also note the statement of Sarai "it may be that I may obtain children by her." Does this not suggest that the children would be legitimate?

adam b I know without a doubt that you did not read what d spike wrote At the top of the page!

Megadoc,
Have you not read what I wrote PLAINLY from the Bible? What is the obviously understood meaning?

YOU PREFER (OR IT HAS BECOME THE NORM) TO FOLLOW THE MISGUIDED DESIRES OF THOSE WHO "CORRECT THE WORD OF GOD"!!

THAT'S WHAT I KNOW, WITHOUT A DOUBT!!!

You seem to know very little, and read even less... no doubt the former is due to the latter...
Megadoc is right. You clearly didn't read my post. You just saw one sentence and went all jihadi... That sort of nervous excitability hinders your ability to take part in intelligent discussion - you need to calm down.

Since you WON'T go back and read my post, I will repeat the main points that YOU NEED TO BE AWARE OF.
1. Hagar is repeatedly referred to as a servant of Sarai - both before and AFTER Abram and Hagar did the horizontal mambo.
2. She is NEVER referred to as Abram's wife, except for that ONE line: "Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife." This is CLEARLY a euphemism for sexual intercourse - the bible has a few of these: He KNEW his wife is one of the better known ones.
3. It was an ancient middle eastern custom that a wife could give her slave to her husband and the child thus conceived would be counted as the child of the wife, hence Sarai's thought: "perhaps I can build a family through her" - so I don't know where your dotish ramblings about folks thinking Ishmael to be illegitimate come from.
This custom is well known in history and for instance in Babylonian law a wife was entitled to get children from her husband through her slave, without any idea that the slave would receive the status of a legal wife. In the Bible the same custom is employed again by Abraham's grandson Jacob with Lea and Rachel, his wives, and their maidservants Bilhah and Zilpah.

Look once more at the passage that you claim to have written PLAINLY FROM:

Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar; so she said to Abram, "The LORD has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my maidservant; perhaps I can build a family through her." Abram agreed to what Sarai said.

So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian maidservant Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived. When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. Then Sarai said to Abram, "You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my servant in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the LORD judge between you and me." "Your servant is in your hands," Abram said. "Do with her whatever you think best." Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.

Learn to read what is written plainly, before you attempt to write plainly - otherwise you appear most plainly foolish in the eyes of those who can.

[d spike]

Megadoc/Dspike,
If you apply the SAME level of criticism to the authenticity of the Bible as you do to the Qur'aan and Hadith, then you would reject the Bible as you do the Qur'aan.

Also, if you apply the SAME level of FAITH / OPTIMISM to the Qur'aan / Authentic Hadith as you do to the Bible, then you would accept the Qur'aan / Authentic Hadith as you accept the Bible.

If you compare your basis for acceptance, then you would see that the Qur'aan / Authentic Hadith fulfills a higher criteria for acceptance.

Really? Can you explain this in greater detail?
Or blanket statements are your forte?
(Or is it that this was what you were told to say, and you have NO idea what it means?)


(Or is it that you don't have the mimeographed sheet with the additional explanations?)

[d spike]

You clearly have me mistaken for someone else.
First of all, I don't accept scripture literally - that goes for ANY scripture.
I consider that God, in his infinite wisdom, has revealed truth to men through the ages... and NOT to JUST ONE GROUP. (You ASSUME that I don't accept the Koran as scripture, but that is due to your expectations of a fellow believer - NOT WHAT I CONSIDER SCRIPTURE.)
I refuse to accept that God would let His beloved Creation go to hell in a hand-basket, and just nurse a small group towards "salvation" or whatever (This just creates the "Mammy spoil-chile" syndrome that plagues our collective understanding of the divine.)

Throughout the ages, man has had truth revealed to him... this was recorded for the BENEFIT of generations - not their detriment. If people wish to twist their religious beliefs to their own selfish and greedy ends then that is the fault of their own selfishness - not their religion.

The only criteria for acceptance that exists is the one you create in your own empty head... unless of course, one's head is SO empty that one requires OTHERS to build such criteria for one to cling to...

[Kasey]

Learn to read what is written plainly, before you attempt to write plainly - otherwise you appear most plainly foolish in the eyes of those who can.

TOO LATE!!!! That happened a hundred pages ago!!

[d spike]

Kasey... yuh not easy, nah...

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

man has sought religion to fill in the gaps in our curiosity

it is called God of the Gaps and it is an actual theological perspective
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps

Science was probably the true religion we were seeking all along, with all the explanations, and the means to find and bridge gaps in our knoledge.

by definition, science cannot be a religion. Fundamentally religion is based on faith and science is absolutely not based on faith.

Also science aims to re-write itself when new facts are found and hypotheses are proven. Religion is based on a set of fixed beliefs.

Humans are building machines to disect sub atomic particles to find answers to the origins of the universe. No amount of reading any religous text will reveal any new evidence except: "I say it is this way, blindly follow" in face, religious clerics should not be phased by science... if they are right, all of our experements will one day prove the exsistence of god, molded in their fashion.

one day? Science is not doing a good job at proving them right NOW!
Evolution, abiogenesis, heliocentric and not geocentric etc etc.

So we should just all sit back and relax and let sciennce prove which religion is correct... or all of them are wrong.

if we all sat back and took what was written in a book thousands of years ago, we would not have modern medicine, space travel and modern technology.

100 years ago we had no idea of what the earth looked like from space.

[Dizzy28]

You clearly have me mistaken for someone else.
First of all, I don't accept scripture literally - that goes for ANY scripture.
I consider that God, in his infinite wisdom, has revealed truth to men through the ages... and NOT to JUST ONE GROUP. (You ASSUME that I don't accept the Koran as scripture, but that is due to your expectations of a fellow believer - NOT WHAT I CONSIDER SCRIPTURE.)
I refuse to accept that God would let His beloved Creation go to hell in a hand-basket, and just nurse a small group towards "salvation" or whatever (This just creates the "Mammy spoil-chile" syndrome that plagues our collective understanding of the divine.)

Throughout the ages, man has had truth revealed to him... this was recorded for the BENEFIT of generations - not their detriment. If people wish to twist their religious beliefs to their own selfish and greedy ends then that is the fault of their own selfishness - not their religion.

The only criteria for acceptance that exists is the one you create in your own empty head... unless of course, one's head is SO empty that one requires OTHERS to build such criteria for one to cling to...

^ Subscribed

[RBphoto]

Ubermod... one thing about science.... Everything is a theory. Theories are being proven and disproved all the time. When you have a proven theory, you take it as canon until it is disproved. In that sense, you need to have a certain amount of faith. Light still has the dual particle wave theory, magnetic theory is still a huge leap of faith (most of what we know are effects and models),

We base our faith on experiments, mathematical models and statistics for some fundamental phenomena. That is why the understanding of sub atomic particles is needed to understand some large scale phenomena. Quantum theory was responsible for telling us if we shot a plug of one metal into a ball of another metal using gunpowder (look at how simple the workings of an atom bomb are) it would cause an unstable critical reaction and a huge explosion. We are now told that some of those theories in the 40's were incomplete or even wrong... so if we had no faith in the science, we would not move to experiment and make it a reality, whether or not we knew the concequences.

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

^ vocabulary and definitions

Theory
Theory is a contemplative and rational type of abstract or generalizing thinking, or the results of such thinking. Depending on the context, the results might for example include generalized explanations of how nature works, or even how divine or metaphysical matters are thought to work.

Scientific Theory
A scientific theory is "a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment."

Please don't confuse the two.

Faith
belief that is not based on proof

A scientist can have faith that the coffee shop will have donuts this morning or that his hypothesis would be substantiated by fact, however that is NOT part of the scientific method.

"To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning."

So the "faith" you mentioned above is something scientists and all humans do, it is called HOPE, however it is not science.

[RBphoto]

Well, faith by any other name serves one purpouse... it allows us to believe in something so our mental process can keep functioning without worring about it.

"I have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow". If I said that a few thousand years ago, somebody thought it was god in the sky driving a charriot or something of the sort... and that god being powerful and benevolent will do it just to give us light every day. If I said that now, it would mean that I have a clue of how the solar system works, and the probability of the sun rising is quite high.

Both those scenarios will alow us to go about our daily lives withot having to worry about the sun rising the next day... just as faith is derived from experiments which show with certainty that a given hypothesis is correct beyond a reasonable doubt. However, no theory or proof is 100% CERTAIN.

[ztune]

yasalama should try being less of a douche

thanks for posting this meng, learned more than one thing and good thead, learning alot.

[Duane 3NE 2NR]

Well, faith by any other name serves one purpouse... it allows us to believe in something so our mental process can keep functioning without worring about it.

"I have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow". If I said that a few thousand years ago, somebody thought it was god in the sky driving a charriot or something of the sort... and that god being powerful and benevolent will do it just to give us light every day. If I said that now, it would mean that I have a clue of how the solar system works, and the probability of the sun rising is quite high.

Both those scenarios will alow us to go about our daily lives withot having to worry about the sun rising the next day... just as faith is derived from experiments which show with certainty that a given hypothesis is correct beyond a reasonable doubt. However, no theory or proof is 100% CERTAIN.

but that does not mean faith is required.

In religion, faith is a requirement.

[AdamB]

You clearly have me mistaken for someone else.
First of all, I don't accept scripture literally - that goes for ANY scripture.
So you accept it the way that YOU ALONE want to accept it?

I consider that God, in his infinite wisdom, has revealed truth to men through the ages... and NOT to JUST ONE GROUP.
Muslims "consider" the same, we do not differ except that we say (with evidence from GOD that we accept and submit to) that MAN has changed and "corrupted" these "revelations" from what you refer to as "revealed truth".

(You ASSUME that I don't accept the Koran as scripture, but that is due to your expectations of a fellow believer - NOT WHAT I CONSIDER SCRIPTURE.)

True BELIEF comprises ACCEPTANCE and SUBMISSION, so if you "say" that you accept something (scripture) but have not submitted to it, THEN YOU HAVE NOT REALLY BELIEVED.

I refuse to accept that God would let His beloved Creation go to hell in a hand-basket, and just nurse a small group towards "salvation" or whatever (This just creates the "Mammy spoil-chile" syndrome that plagues our collective understanding of the divine.)

Then you REJECT the revelation of GOD because YOU know better than GOD what HE has created, intended and willed for man to choose from and it's consequences. YOU DENY!! YOU DISBELIEVE!!

Throughout the ages, man has had truth revealed to him... this was recorded for the BENEFIT of generations - not their detriment. If people wish to twist their religious beliefs to their own selfish and greedy endsthen that is the fault of their own selfishness - not their religion.

Just as YOU say that you have done. Oh sorry, this is a discussion and you don't have to expose your personal beliefs. THAT'S CONVENIENT!!

The only criteria for acceptance that exists is the one you create in your own empty head... unless of course, one's head is SO empty that one requires OTHERS to build such criteria for one to cling to...

Is this not what YOU have done? What you have said above??

We discuss matters and will inevitably differ but you have made it clear that YOUR way is the way of insults and accusations??!!! Is that what your LORD Jesus taught you? Is that his example that you follow?

[Kasey]

^^So far IMHO, there is nothing I have read here that dspike was not spot on. The readers of the thread can obviously see via certain individuals writings who is the deluded one, and who are the objective ones here.
Vote anyone?

[RBphoto]

Well, faith by any other name serves one purpouse... it allows us to believe in something so our mental process can keep functioning without worring about it.

"I have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow". If I said that a few thousand years ago, somebody thought it was god in the sky driving a charriot or something of the sort... and that god being powerful and benevolent will do it just to give us light every day. If I said that now, it would mean that I have a clue of how the solar system works, and the probability of the sun rising is quite high.

Both those scenarios will alow us to go about our daily lives withot having to worry about the sun rising the next day... just as faith is derived from experiments which show with certainty that a given hypothesis is correct beyond a reasonable doubt. However, no theory or proof is 100% CERTAIN.

but that does not mean faith is required.

In religion, faith is a requirement.

^^^ Which, when you think about it... is absurd. If god is so manifest, his presence would be self evident. Basically religions ask you to brainwash yourself twice... first to believe that this magnificent creature exsists... without form, cannot be seen or proved to be exsisting.. then to believe that the thing gave direction to an imperfect human and wants you to do what it telepathically beamed into the mind of a lowly being like a man.


This is why I am an agnostic Hindu. I don't take any of that stuff at face value, but as moral stories. I look at dharma an Karma as statistical living. I drive at 80kmph max on the highway so the odds of me getting in an accident are much less. If I drive faster, I accumulate karma of the statistical probability of me crashing. Thus, even on a day when I am driving at 80kmph, because of my reckless past, I have increased my probability of crashing.

[AdamB]

^^So far IMHO, there is nothing I have read here that dspike was not spot on. The readers of the thread can obviously see via certain individuals writings who is the deluded one, and who are the objective ones here.
Vote anyone?

LOL!! These highlighted words above are all subjective!!

On your eyes and ears are a veil, DEAF, DUMB AND BLIND YOU WILL NOT RETURN TO THE TRUE PATH OF GOD!!

Afraid to confront Dspike because he has an uncanny ability to insult?

Those things that he has been "spot on", what is it's basis? he believes in GOD, has he provided evidence?

He believes in the bible, do you follow him in following it and what it calls you to?

He has directed you to PERSONAL VIEWS, inconsistent with the views of his religion (christianity), do you follow him?

He has directed you to keep believing in the same rubbish you always believed in? So in what has he been spot on?

[AdamB]

Learn to read what is written plainly, before you attempt to write plainly - otherwise you appear most plainly foolish in the eyes of those who can.

[/quote][/quote]
You forgot to comment on this part which followed:
YOU PREFER (OR IT HAS BECOME THE NORM) TO FOLLOW THE MISGUIDED DESIRES OF THOSE WHO "CORRECT THE WORD OF GOD"!!

I did not intend to go into a detailed theological debate about the above, I simply pointed out what is written in the bible that is PLAIN for all to see. You can twist and turn all you want. GOD knows best and knows the truth.

The christian religion rejects a man having more than one wife, yet one of GOD's greatest prophets had more than one wife. So did he sin? Or is it that man has the choice in some matters to do what is customary for the people to do (ignoring or changing the laws set out by GOD)?

[Kasey]

^^So far IMHO, there is nothing I have read here that dspike was not spot on. The readers of the thread can obviously see via certain individuals writings who is the deluded one, and who are the objective ones here.
Vote anyone?

LOL!! These highlighted words above are all subjective!! Well, actually, saying that is actually being subjective also, ur point nullified

On your eyes and ears are a veil, DEAF, DUMB AND BLIND YOU WILL NOT RETURN TO THE TRUE PATH OF GOD!! this again, is an uneducated opinion

Afraid to confront Dspike because he has an uncanny ability to insult? in a word, NO. When u actually read and understand, you will actually get his points


Those things that he has been "spot on", what is it's basis? he believes in GOD, has he provided evidence? ahave you? other than ur napkin?


He believes in the bible, do you follow him in following it and what it calls you to? I see u have not understood his stance. He does not 'believe' in the Bible you @#$%, he believes in the lessons it teaches, together with other scriptures.


He has directed you to PERSONAL VIEWS, inconsistent with the views of his religion (christianity), do you follow him? First of all, this an assumption. Ask me if he has directed me first.....we will start from there.


He has directed you to keep believing in the same rubbish you always believed in? the only rubbish in here is what you post (dont call people's beliefs rubbish). It is RUDE!!!
So in what has he been spot on?

[Kasey]

He has been spot on in getting his point accross:
1) That no religion can prove without a doubt that it is the true religion.
2) Dont take the scriptures literally, or believe without proof. Believe in the good lessons they ALL teach.
3) Have some degree of respect for other people's belief, or go and live in a cave.

[megadoc1]

take it easy Kasey, the topic at hand was about what we understand when one read the scriptures (or any document ), clearly Adam b is having a hard time doing this because he is bent on having a religious squabble ,what d spike addressed was how we understand the writings especially where Sarah. Abraham and Hagar is concerned ,what Adam b should have done is offer an argument against what d spike wrote then give us his suggestion on the matter but no !!! he is incapable of doing so! why? because he is bent on having a religious squabble

..but let me say this ...Adam b what you wrote is not a response to what d spike wrote and it makes only you look stupid please put aside the islam vs christian mindset for a moment and re read and respond to what was written by d spike, c'mon you can do it! ,I can tell you that even though its about religious text the argument is not a religious one but one of common sense

[bluefete]

I saw this theory posited in a BBC documentary about 2 years ago. Now its back to haunt us. What a crock! If this is so then we should find the hidden life on Mars and Jupiter and Venus and ...


Are we the extraterrestrials? Scientists back theory that life was brought to Earth by space microbes

By Mark Prigg

PUBLISHED: 15:33 GMT, 25 September 2012 | UPDATED: 17:15 GMT, 25 September 2012

Extraterrestrial microbes might have brought life to Earth after travelling through space for millions of years, say scientists.

The theory is based on calculations showing a high likelihood of rock fragments from planets in other star systems landing on Earth long ago.

Some of them could have carried embedded micro-organisms, according to experts writing in the journal Astrobiology.

The research suggests the dormant bugs could easily have survived the long journey through space, despite high levels of cosmic radiation.

Simple life may equally well have travelled from Earth to planets outside the Solar System, the scientists believe.

The process, known as lithopanspermia, could mean the universe is teeming with Earth-like life.

'Our work ... says that lithopanspermia might have been very likely, and it may be the first paper to demonstrate that,' said lead researcher Dr Edward Belbruno, from Princeton University in the US.

'If this mechanism is true, it has implications for life in the universe as a whole.

'This could have happened anywhere.'

Large volcanic eruptions, meteorite impacts and collisions with other bodies can cause rocky fragments of planets to fly into space.

When the Solar System was young, and the Sun much closer to its neighbours than it is today, some of this debris could have been exchanged between planets orbiting different stars, say the scientists.

Travelling relatively slowly, there was a good chance of them being 'captured' by the gravity of planets they approached.

The researchers ran computer programmes simulating the star cluster in which the Sun was born.

They found that of all the rocky fragments cast off from our Solar System and its closest neighbour, between five and 12 out of 10,000 could have been captured by the other.

During a period of 10 million to 90 million years, anything between 100 trillion and 30 quadrillion objects weighing more than 10 kilogrammes could have been transferred.

Any organisms arriving on Earth would have found a planet already covered in water with conditions suitable for life.



The Sun’s birth cluster slowly broke apart when the Solar System was 135 million to 535 million years old.

Earth possessed surface water from when the Solar System was just 288 million years of age, making it likely that the planet was ready to receive alien microbes.

Co-author Dr Amaya Moro-Martin, an astronomer from the Centro de Astrobiologia in Spain, said: 'Our study stops when the solid matter is trapped by the second planetary system, but for lithopanspermia to be completed it actually needs to land on a terrestrial planet where life could flourish.

'The study of the probability of landing on a terrestrial planet is work that we now know is worth doing because large quantities of solid material originating from the first planetary system may be trapped by the second planetary system, waiting to land on a terrestrial planet.

'Our study does not prove lithopanspermia actually took place, but it indicates that it is an open possibility.'

The research was presented today at the 2012 European Planetary Science Congress in Madrid.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... z27ip42jXh
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[bluefete]

^^^ Which, when you think about it... is absurd. If god is so manifest, his presence would be self evident Is it not already self evident? How did you get here? Are we all creatures of chance?. Basically religions ask you to brainwash yourself twice... first to believe that this magnificent creature exists... without form, cannot be seen or proved to be existing.Can you see gravity? How do you know it exists? If gravity, which is invisible, can exist, why not a magnificent, invisible God?. then to believe that the thing gave direction to an imperfect human and wants you to do what it telepathically beamed into the mind of a lowly being like a man.Man was not always imperfect. At one time he had a perfect nature so much so that the angels trembled before him. Then came sin!

[Chimera]

does anyone here watch dexter?

specifically the episodes with Doomsday Killer?

[sensiman]

does anyone here watch dexter?

specifically the episodes with Doomsday Killer?

Doomsday was boring compared to Trinity.

[Chimera]

nah i talking about the parts where they justify murder in the name of God