Do you believe in God and why

[mauGR1]

8 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

We don't come back, and that's the point. God gives us one chance to do what he asks of us, and if we fail, we don't enter heaven.

No, sorry, that s pure indoctrination.as I believe that physical life is a reflection of what happens in higher realms, the sleeping state can be compared to death. Waking up can be compared to a new life, and what you learned yesterday you will carry with you today and tomorrow. Heaven and hell are just States of mind, and the father always forgives the son s mistakes, as well illustrated in the parable of the prodigal son.

[transam]

51 minutes ago, Peter Denis said:

As the French say: 'C'est le ton qui fait la musique'.

No problem at all with differing views, that often helps re-calibrating your own thought-process.

But big problem with contemptuous and condescending remarks disguised as 'own opinion'.

Well there we have it, you cannot "take" criticism over your beliefs, where is your inner spirit I keep hearing about, I can tell you one thing, Jehovah Witness folk can, I have the T-shirt to all parties walking away with a smile....???? 

[fredwiggy]

Just now, transam said:

Who told you that....?

Years of teachings from many priests, preachers, other Christians and the Bible. But of course, they're all wrong and you are right. We all came from an explosion of matter that all of a sudden was just there.

[mauGR1]

6 minutes ago, transam said:

You've watched that film......????

 

 

Not really fond of movies, as life is a great movie in itself.

So, no, just my opinion.

[Heppinger]

2 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

Years of teachings from many priests, preachers, other Christians and the Bible. But of course, they're all wrong and you are right. We all came from an explosion of matter that all of a sudden was just there.

umm... i think you confused me with someone else.

[transam]

5 minutes ago, Heppinger said:

Who told you that?

God.............????

[Heppinger]

1 minute ago, transam said:

God.............????

Of course, but which one of your gods? Einstein, Darwin or Neil Degrassi-Tyson?

[Sunmaster]

10 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

Years of teachings from many priests, preachers, other Christians and the Bible. But of course, they're all wrong and you are right. We all came from an explosion of matter that all of a sudden was just there.

Nearly 30% of the world's population (2.34 billion people) believe in reincarnation. Are they all wrong, and you're right? Because it's written in a book? The priests, the preachers and the other Christians only learned it from that book, so they don't count as a reliable source of information.

Edited August 10, 2020 by Sunmaster

[transam]

3 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

Years of teachings from many priests, preachers, other Christians and the Bible. But of course, they're all wrong and you are right. We all came from an explosion of matter that all of a sudden was just there.

So Earth bound non-scientist blokes get your vote, scientists nil...

I rest my case and umbrella, as it's raining here..............????

[transam]

1 minute ago, Heppinger said:

Of course, but which one of your gods? Einstein, Darwin or Neil Degrassi-Tyson?

Probably Dyson....????

[mauGR1]

1 minute ago, Sunmaster said:

The priests, the preachers and the other Christians only know it from that book, so they don't count as a reliable source of information.

Esoteric Christians take reincarnation as a fact. I have reasons to believe that in the official narrative, the reincarnation theory has been omitted or adulterated, although in the new testament there are a few references to past lives of Jesus and John the Baptist.

[Peter Denis]

22 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

We don't come back, and that's the point. God gives us one chance to do what he asks of us, and if we fail, we don't enter heaven.

In my world-view - which for sure is not gospel - the Ego or Personality of Fred Wiggy or Peter Denis or any other person does NOT come back.  But the divine spark in Fred Wiggy or Peter Denis (our Essence) can decide to come back, and in my case it surely will as there are still many lessons that I did prove in my daily life not to have learned and internalized yet. 

But despite my belief in this ever-recurring Cycle of Re-Birth and my Essence (not my personality) coming back, I also believe that you should live your present life as if it is your Last One. 

Eventually also the Eternal Procrastinator will fulfill his life-destiny but might take 'an eternity', so to twist the saying a bit > don't postpone till your next life, what you can do in this one.  

[fredwiggy]

Just now, Sunmaster said:

Nearly 30% of the world's population (2.34 billion people) believe in reincarnation. Are they all wrong, and you're right? Because it's written in a book? The priests, the preachers and the other Christians only know it from that book, so they don't count as a reliable source of information.

And the 30% aren't a reliable source either. I thought you believed in God, and if you do, you would know that we only have one chance. Do you take both sides just to make an argument or are you suffering from a disorder? It doesn't matter what anyone believes. No one can help you enter heaven. It's a personal relationship with God (Jesus) that matters. Everyone can have their opinions, and not everyone is right. It doesn't matter if I'm right or wrong to anyone but myself. I choose one way, others choose their way. This thread is asking do you believe and why. I've stated my reasons. Others have stated theirs. Only one side is right, and this we will all find out soon enough.

[Sunmaster]

1 minute ago, mauGR1 said:

Esoteric Christians take reincarnation as a fact. I have reasons to believe that in the official narrative, the reincarnation theory has been omitted or adulterated, although in the new testament there are a few references to past lives of Jesus and John the Baptist.

Yes, that's my understanding as well, and one of the reasons I don't hold that book in a high regard.

[Heppinger]

12 minutes ago, transam said:

Probably Dyson....????

haha good answer, i can't debunk him ????

[luckyluke]

23 hours ago, Sunmaster said:

But how can you find a happiness that will stay with you regardless, whether you have money, friends, good health or not?

Must be boring.

I find happiness in nature, but I don't want to watch nature 24 hours a day.

I like earth pleasures, bring me all kind of happiness's.

OK, sometimes these earth pleasures bring me unhappiness later on.

I learned to live with it.

[mauGR1]

1 minute ago, Sunmaster said:

Yes, that's my understanding as well, and one of the reasons I don't hold that book in a high regard.

The new testament ? Well, being more recent, I think it's less corrupted than the old testament. Some Christian scholars have done a  great work anyway, trying to decipher some quite obscure passages of both books, which being metaphors of spiritual reality, should not be taken too literally imho.

[Sunmaster]

17 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

And the 30% aren't a reliable source either. I thought you believed in God, and if you do, you would know that we only have one chance. Do you take both sides just to make an argument or are you suffering from a disorder? It doesn't matter what anyone believes. No one can help you enter heaven. It's a personal relationship with God (Jesus) that matters. Everyone can have their opinions, and not everyone is right. It doesn't matter if I'm right or wrong to anyone but myself. I choose one way, others choose their way. This thread is asking do you believe and why. I've stated my reasons. Others have stated theirs. Only one side is right, and this we will all find out soon enough.

I do believe in God, but we have a very different understanding of what this God is.
 

I completely understand where you're coming from and the relationship you have with your God (your interpretation of God) is your own personal thing, like you rightly said. That personal relationship should not be up for debate. Religious dogma on the other hand, should (must) be challenged at every opportunity, or you risk it becoming rigid and impervious to change.
 

My interpretation of God is different from yours in that it seeks to include everything there is, because everything there is, is part of God. The butterfly, the eyeball eating worms, the good, the bad, the ugly, the saints and sinners, all different religions, science, miracles....there is nothing that is not God and nothing that should be excluded. 
It's like you're building a puzzle, but for some reason decide to ignore all blue pieces. It doesn't make sense to me.

I vehemently disagree with the notion that only one side can be right. Different sides look at the same thing and come up with different interpretations. Tagged talked about the Tao. Black and white coexist in the same space, alternating and compenetrating each other. 2 truths that coexist at the same time, seemingly at different ends of the spectrum. But if you raise your perspective, you will see that they form a perfect circle and that one doesn't have to exclude the other one to have a reason to exist. 

The perspective is key here.
Maybe that's why you think I sit on both sides of the fence. For me, there is no fence.
 

Edited August 10, 2020 by Sunmaster

[thaibeachlovers]

1 hour ago, Tagged said:

Its lovely to see you do not believe in afterlife? 
 

Recycling is no absolute death, and if you spread your genes? Even this planet will finely be recycled, the dnas from this planet will be spread with cosmic winds, travel on comets far out in the universe and finely infest  a new planet. We are all one remember?

Where did I say I don't believe in the afterlife? Death is only of this animal body, not the soul.

 

The universe dies when the last star runs out of fuel.

[thaibeachlovers]

36 minutes ago, transam said:

So Earth bound non-scientist blokes get your vote, scientists nil...

I rest my case and umbrella, as it's raining here..............????

Are you bored and thought you'd have some fun on here?

[transam]

20 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

The new testament ? Well, being more recent, I think it's less corrupted than the old testament. Some Christian scholars have done a  great work anyway, trying to decipher some quite obscure passages of both books, which being metaphors of spiritual reality, should not be taken too literally imho.

In other words, fooled around with by man for the next lot of readers...????

[transam]

2 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Are you bored and thought you'd have some fun on here?

No, I am fixing the back door water ingress, never a dull moment here for me, I just nip back to see what's going on here now and again...????

Why, are you bored...?

[luckyluke]

20 hours ago, Sunmaster said:

Sorry, but this is just nonsense.
What do you know about what people "waste their time" upon? Is trying to grow as an individual a waste of time? Is trying to know what you truly are a waste of time? Is trying to do good and help others a waste of time?
Even if there's nothing after death, the time you spent doing those things will have been the best time you've spent in your life.

It is a fair and honorable thing to do.
However it becomes less respectable, once one find the need to constantly brag about it.

[mauGR1]

6 minutes ago, transam said:

In other words, fooled around with by man for the next lot of readers...????

That's about right, that s why what we read in the books should always be compared with real life experience.

But saying that the Bible is completely wrong is not better than saying that the Bible is completely right.

If I'm allowed a metaphor, it's like seeing a tree full of delicious fruits, and wasting time criticising the colour of the bark or the shape of the trunk.

We are not given a brain for nothing.

[Tagged]

24 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Where did I say I don't believe in the afterlife? Death is only of this animal body, not the soul.

 

The universe dies when the last star runs out of fuel.

Thats to sure sir! Just admit you do not know, you think, and you believe, and the unsurten part of you, do not give you peace, because you still trying to convince your self by telling others how sure you are. 
 

 

[Heppinger]

SCIENCE V's RELIGION

 

MAC:          Now I could stand here and present some egg-head scientific argument based on fact,  I'm just a regular dude I like to drink beer and i love my family, rock flag and                     eagle right Charlie? 

CHARLIE:   He's got a point.

DENNIS:     No he doesn't.

MAC:          You see Charlie, these liberals are trying to assassinate my character.  Now i can't change their mind, I won't change my mind because I don't have to because I'm an                     American.  I won't change my mind on anything regardless of the facts of the facts that are set out before me. I'm dug in and I'l never change.

DENNIS:     Mac look your wasting our time, your not going to get us to not believe in evolution.

MAC:          And why is that?

DENNIS:     Because the smartest scientists in the entire world all agree that its real.

MAC:          I'm glad you bought that up, because Mr. Reynolds, Science is a liar sometimes!

DEE:          Oh boy.

MAC:          This is Aristotle thought to be the smartest man on the planet he believed that the earth was the center of the universe and everybody believed him because he was                   so smart until another smartest guy came around, Galileo, and he disproved that theory making Aristotle and everybody else on earth look like a BITCH.

                 Of course Galileo then thought comets were an optical illusion and there is no way the moon could cause the ocean's tides. Everybody believed that because he was 

                 so smart, he was also wrong, making him and everyone else on earth look like a BITCH again.  And then, best of all, Sir Isaac Newton gets born and blows everybody's

                 nips off with his big brains of course he also thought he could turn metal into gold and died eating mercury, making him yet another stupid BITCH. Are you seeing a                       pattern?

DENNIS:     NO

MAC:          Mr. Reynolds these were all the smartest scientists on the planet, only problem is they kept being wrong, sometimes.

DENNIS:      Oh this is insane you fool.

MAC:          I'm a fool because I have more faith in the Saints that wrote the Bible?

DENNIS:      Yeah, because you just read the words of a bunch of guys you never met and you just take it on "faith" that everything they wrote is true.

MAC:          hmmm.... and what makes you think that what your scientists are writing is anymore truer then my Saints?

DENNIS:      Because there are volumes of proven data .....  numbers...   figures....  th......th.....there are fossil records 

MAC:          Oh fossil records..... Ahgg.....  I didn't even think about the fossil records I guess I'l concede.......Oh ah.. one more thing before I do Mr. Reynolds, have you seen these 

                  fossil records? 

DENNIS:      Have I see...... Ugh...?  

MAC:           Have you poored through the data yourself the numbers the figures?

DENNIS:      Well.... No...  I mean..... No....

MAC:           Oh interesting. So let me get this straight Mr. Reynolds, you get your information from a book written by men you've never met and you take their words as truth                        based on a willingness to believe, a desire to accept, a leap of.... Oof....... dare I say it....  FAITH?

DENNIS:       Oh... come on look, I mean.... I don't even know how I'm supposed to respond to that like...... Oh come that is... thats a..... false....... e...e...equivalency 

MAC:           Just answer the question Mr. Reynolds.

DENNIS:      S...sure Yeah Ok....

MAC:           I rest my case.

[luckyluke]

2 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

LOL. God made everything, including mammoths, and man can't make a piece of meat in a test tube live. Cloning is using a live cell.

Get back to us when a technician can make a piece of meat live and reproduce.

I am convinced it is just a matter of time.

[transam]

2 minutes ago, Heppinger said:

SCIENCE V's RELIGION

 

MAC:          Now I could stand here and present some egg-head scientific argument based on fact,  I'm just a regular dude I like to drink beer and i love my family, rock flag and                     eagle right Charlie? 

CHARLIE:   He's got a point.

DENNIS:     No he doesn't.

MAC:          You see Charlie, these liberals are trying to assassinate my character.  Now i can't change their mind, I won't change my mind because I don't have to because I'm an                     American.  I won't change my mind on anything regardless of the facts of the facts that are set out before me. I'm dug in and I'l never change.

DENNIS:     Mac look your wasting our time, your not going to get us to not believe in evolution.

MAC:          And why is that?

DENNIS:     Because the smartest scientists in the entire world all agree that its real.

MAC:          I'm glad you bought that up, because Mr. Reynolds, Science is a liar sometimes!

DEE:          Oh boy.

MAC:          This is Aristotle thought to be the smartest man on the planet he believed that the earth was the center of the universe and everybody believed him because he was                   so smart until another smartest guy came around, Galileo, and he disproved that theory making Aristotle and everybody else on earth look like a BITCH.

                 Of course Galileo then thought comets were an optical illusion and there is no way the moon could cause the ocean's tides. Everybody believed that because he was 

                 so smart, he was also wrong, making him and everyone else on earth look like a BITCH again.  And then, best of all, Sir Isaac Newton gets born and blows everybody's

                 nips off with his big brains of course he also thought he could turn metal into gold and died eating mercury, making him yet another stupid BITCH. Are you seeing a                       pattern?

DENNIS:     NO

MAC:          Mr. Reynolds these were all the smartest scientists on the planet, only problem is they kept being wrong, sometimes.

DENNIS:      Oh this is insane you fool.

MAC:          I'm a fool because I have more faith in the Saints that wrote the Bible?

DENNIS:      Yeah, because you just read the words of a bunch of guys you never met and you just take it on "faith" that everything they wrote is true.

MAC:          hmmm.... and what makes you think that what your scientists are writing is anymore truer then my Saints?

DENNIS:      Because there are volumes of proven data .....  numbers...   figures....  th......th.....there are fossil records 

MAC:          Oh fossil records..... Ahgg.....  I didn't even think about the fossil records I guess I'l concede.......Oh ah.. one more thing before I do Mr. Reynolds, have you seen these 

                  fossil records? 

DENNIS:      Have I see...... Ugh...?  

MAC:           Have you poored through the data yourself the numbers the figures?

DENNIS:      Well.... No...  I mean..... No....

MAC:           Oh interesting. So let me get this straight Mr. Reynolds, you get your information from a book written by men you've never met and you take their words as truth                        based on a willingness to believe, a desire to accept, a leap of.... Oof....... dare I say it....  FAITH?

DENNIS:       Oh... come on look, I mean.... I don't even know how I'm supposed to respond to that like...... Oh come that is... thats a..... false....... e...e...equivalency 

MAC:           Just answer the question Mr. Reynolds.

DENNIS:      S...sure Yeah Ok....

MAC:           I rest my case.

When did man finally work out the Earth was not flat....????

 

https://www.lockhaven.edu/~dsimanek/flat/flateart.htm

[Heppinger]

1 minute ago, transam said:

When did man finally work out the Earth was not flat....????

 

https://www.lockhaven.edu/~dsimanek/flat/flateart.htm

I think you missed the point of the skit. Ask yourself when did YOU finally work out the earth is not flat.

[transam]

1 minute ago, Heppinger said:

I think you missed the point of the skit. Ask yourself when did YOU finally work out the earth is not flat.

Read the link, quite amusing....

Oh me, mum bought me a globe when I was about 5, never thought about it before then...????

 

And not one of these....