Do you believe all religions are truly one and the same?

Shutting down indeed. :wink:

fresco,

It's wasted in the sense that it's futile. But it's entertainment. Hell, were it not for this conversation I would have never thought it possible for someone to take pride in their "skill" in using Caps Lock.

truth
Zg...teest, besides confessing that you are too dense to float on my "mystic cloud", what the devil did you mean by stretching my metaphor to include the other side of the telescope? Seems like a major non-sequitur to me and a reflection of your failure to get my point.

I will as you say, "not quibble" with who you were obviously addressing.
I was refering to your statement in that address that refered to me. Again, I won't quibble about what you meant or what I thought you meant. All
things considered, in your address, it really doesn't matter to me.

Happy New Year EVERYONE!

2003 has been an especially rewarding one for me -- and I look forward to 2004 with optimism.

I hope 2003 was as rewarding for you all -- and I hope 2004 is even better.

I appreciate your cyber friendships -- even when we are taking shots at each other -- and I thank you for sharing your thoughts with me.

truth
Happy New Year, Frank. Yesl, it has been good. Thanks.

The real actual proof
Take a look around you from where you sit. You will notice that everything in the room is ?'made': the walls, the ceiling, the chair where you sit, the book you hold in your hand, the glass on the table and countless other details. None of them happen to exist in your room of their own accord. Even the simple loops of the carpet were made by someone: they did not appear spontaneously or by chance.

A person who is about to read a book knows that it has been written by an author for a specific reason. It would not even occur to him that this book might have come into being by chance. In the same manner, a person who sees a sculpture has no doubt whatsoever that it was made by a sculptor. And not just works of art: even a few bricks resting on top of one another make one think that they must have been brought to rest just so by someone within a certain plan. Therefore, everywhere where there is an order - either small or big - a founder and protector of this order must also exist. If, one day, somebody came forward and said that raw iron and coal came together to form steel by chance, which in turn constructed the Eiffel Tower again by chance, would not he and those who believed him be regarded as insane?

The prevailing thought until the early 20th century was that the universe had infinite dimensions, that it had existed since eternity, and that it would continue to exist forever. According to this view, called the ?'static universe model', the universe had neither a beginning nor an end. Laying the groundwork for the materialist philosophy, this view denied the existence of a Creator while it maintained that the universe is a constant, stable, and unchanging collection of matter.

Materialism is a system of thought that holds matter to be an absolute being and denies the existence of anything but matter. Having its roots in ancient Greece and gaining ever-increasing acceptance in the 19th century, this system of thought became famous in the shape of the dialectical materialism of Karl Marx.

To admit creation, one has to admit, in the first place, the existence of a moment when the universe did not exist, and that something came out of nothingness. This is something to which science cannot accede.

When Politzer asserted that the universe was not created out of nothingness, he was relying on the static universe model of the 19th century, and thinking that he was posing a scientific claim. However, the 20th century's developing science and technology demolished primitive concepts such as the static universe model that laid the grounds for the materialists. Today, on the brink of the 21st century, modern physics has proved with many experiments, observations and calculations that the universe had a beginning and that it was created out of nothing with a big explosion.

That the universe had a beginning means that the cosmos was brought into being out of nothing, that is, that it was created. If a created thing exists (which did not exist beforehand), then it certainly should have a Creator. Being from non-being is something inconceivable by the human mind. (Man cannot practically conceive it since he has no chance of experiencing it.) Therefore, being from non-being is very different from bringing objects together to form a new object (such as works of art or technological inventions).

In 1929, in the California Mount Wilson observatory, an American astronomer by the name of Edwin Hubble made one of the greatest discoveries in the history of astronomy. While he observed the stars with a giant telescope, he found out that the light from them was shifted to the red end of the spectrum and that this shift was more pronounced the further a star was from the earth. This discovery had an electrifying effect in the world of science, because according to the recognised rules of physics, the spectra of light beams travelling towards the point of observation tend towards violet while the spectra of the light beams moving away from the point of observation tend towards red. During Hubble's observations, the light from stars was discovered to tend towards red. This meant that they were constantly moving away from us.

Before long, Hubble made another very important discovery: Stars and galaxies moved away not only from us, but also from one another. The only conclusion that could be derived from a universe where everything moves away from everything else is that the universe constantly ?'expands'.

To better understand, the universe can be thought of as the surface of a balloon being blown up. Just as the points on the surface of a balloon move apart from each other as the balloon is inflated, so do the objects in space move apart from each other as the universe keeps expanding.

The expansion of the universe implied that if it could travel backwards in time, the universe would prove to have originated from a single point. The calculations showed that this ?'single point' that harboured all the matter of the universe should have ?'zero volume' and ?'infinite density'. The universe had come about by the explosion of this single point with zero volume. This great explosion that marked the beginning of the universe was named the ?'Big Bang' and the theory started to be so called.

It has to be stated that ?'zero volume' is a theoretical expression used for descriptive purposes. Science can define the concept of ?'nothingness', which is beyond the limits of human comprehension, only by expressing it as ?'a point with zero volume'. In truth, ?'a point with no volume' means ?'nothingness'. The universe has come into being from nothingness. In other words, it was created.

The expansion of the universe is one of the most important pieces of evidence that the universe was created out of nothing.

So I want everyone to look more into this discovery by the Hubble Telescope. I think this proves everything.

Re: The real actual proof


There is an awful lot around me that was made with intelligent design. But then again there's an awful lot that wasn't.

You focus on that which is for obvious reasons.

truth
Qkid, you are a master of the false analogy and the non-sequitur. Happy New Year anyway.

Re: Back with answers


Not all religions are the same. I consider fundamentalists to be "People of the Lie" because they are so desperate to retain archaic beliefs that they reject all data that conflicts with what they are told and choose to believe pseudoscience and outright fabrications.

There is a huge body of scientific evidence that the earth is over 4.5 billion years old, but arteest ignores all of it in favor of a single long-since-reputed theory based on polonium halos found in a few specimens of granite. (Gentry's theory ignores the possibility that the halos are caused by radon during a natural biotite and fluorite recrystallization process.)

We do not know whether the universe we live in is finite or infinite in extent. It appears to have begun in a big bang about 13.7 billion years ago, but no one knows how or why it began. There is no evidence whatsoever that any creator was needed, and to imagine that a god "just happened" to exist, complete with the requisite knowledge and ability to make a universe magically appear out of nothing, is more incredible to me than a collison of branes or an unstable fluctuation in the quantum foam.

The only thing the same about all religions is that they're all crap.

truth
I must confess that while I agree with Terry's points, I did not understand all of them. But I DO agree with and completely understand Wilso's point.

All religions are not the same. They all believe in a god but there is the question of answering which god do they believe in.
I believe in the God that stood up to the plate and said mankind is mine and I love them all. You have rejected me even though I gave you this wonderful world and universe. I have given you everything you have since the day I created you. But now I want you back under my wings so I can shelter you like I wanted to. Because I love you. I planned on giving you everything to make you completely happy with yourself and happy with the reason I created you. I am God, I will have no other gods before me. I knew you once in Heaven where your spirit was with mine. Some felt they did not need to follow even then. I let you go. Here again is your chance to rule yourself. But do not look to me for the promises I promised the ones who love me. Eternal life is only for those who love and me and want to be with me in Heaven. The mind of a child grasps this fact. I gave you a mind to see me and hear me and feel me, I touch you daily, I roam the earth looking who to help who wants me to intervene because they have no other source that will help them and I will be there because they WANT me.
Fine... make your own future, make your own life, make your own grave, make your own resurrection from that grave, believe another god who tells you he can get you out of that grave, I will be waiting for all eternity to see that. (God laughs)

Amen. (Except, I know God is saddened with those who refuse His love.)

Ruach & Z

All I can say is that I hope I am never so terrified of a god that I would do that kind of sucking up to it in public.

You two remind me of the Iraqis shown demonstrating in the streets of Baghdad prior to our invasion -- holding and kissing pictures of Saddam.

I might call to your attention to the fact that this "loving" god you two "worship" and "love in return" reminds me a lot of Saddam -- except that Saddam was not quite as tyrannical and cruel.

Get a grip on it, both of you.

Have the balls not to be afraid of the dark.

It is embarrassing to watch your grovelling.

Frank, how do you keep reading my mind so well? should I be worried about the amount of time you seem to spend in my head?

Great minds..... :wink: :wink: :wink:




Amazing how easy it is to see the fear in these two, isn't it?

And you have to wonder how they can be blind to it.

But they do "believe" this god of theirs is watching over their shoulder all the time, so I guess they really have got to be on their toes.

Imagine: They even think the god can read their minds -- so they can't even let a bit of doubt linger for a second or two so maybe they can gain a bit of freedom from the monster.

Sad!

Frank- I am not so sure how sad it is. For some people, having to evaluate and think for oneself in making life decisions is far more frightening than following a strict set of rules.

You are right!



(But I still think it's sad! :wink: )

Question to Qkid.

Does the "Q" denote "Qu'ran" ?

truth
Frank, you said on their toes. Did you mean on their knees?