QKid wrote:Frank:
Well first you said that I said that God can condemn me. Well look back I did not say that. I said if we do something which He condemns (which He said not to do) then we have something to be terrified about.
I did not say that. What I said was:
Quote:C'mon, Q. You acknowledge that you "believe" your god can "condemn" you -- and you say you are not terrified of it. In other words, this god of yours has the power to place you in Hell and torture you for all the rest of eternity if you displease it in some way -- and you are not terrified of that!!!???
And you did acknowledge that -- and you acknowledge it again in this post.
According to you, your god can, if he chooses, condemn a soul to hell and torture them for all the rest of eternity.
Quote:Secondly, you said "this god of yours has the power to place you in Hell and torture you for all the rest of eternity if you displease it in some way -- and you are not terrified of that!!!???". Have you ever heard of repenting?
Yeah, you folks also think you can repent and avoid that punishment. But that does not negate my statement that your god has the power to place you in Hell and torture you for all of eternity if you displease him.
That is why I think you are terrified!
The rest of your post, Q, reinforces my opinion that you are a decent human being -- but naive.
Actually, in my opinion, there is something quite pleasing about people who are naive -- so I'll just leave it at that.
Frank Apisa wrote:
Actually, in my opinion, there is something quite pleasing about people who are naive -- so I'll just leave it at that.
Naive = Bush = pleasing to FranK. Oh my!! :wink:
God terrify people and make them relgious!!!!
I think that is not the case in Islam. Allah said that is his way, which is mercy and confortable life in the hereafter, the other way (Satan way) is the hell fire and suffering in the hearafter. Allah said that the choice is yours. people who throw human scarify to the Volcano are the one who worship a God who did not give them choice.
Frank Apisa wrote:QKid wrote:Thanx Frank but I would leave it as it is. All I am saying is that if a man commits a crime or an act or terrorism, his religion should not be blamed or brought into it.
I dont know why u think religion is terrorism. That is a pretty harsh thing to say.
My guess is that a VAST majority of religious people are religious BECAUSE they are terrified. And mostly what they are terrified of is...
...their gods.
That is why people threw virgins into volcanoes -- and that pretty much is why you hear people protesting so loudly about how they love the gods currently popular.
And as a bonus, almost all the religions have at one time or another been terrorists against other religions.
Gotta please their gods!
Then again, Nahar, maybe everyone worshipping a god right now -- is worshipping a god that not exist.
Maybe it is all in the imagination.
Maybe!
I think we are reversing things here. There is, in all religions, a base, which is a guidingline for all followers. You can not condemn a religion for things that were done by followers hundreds of years ago - that all depends on the time where you live, the circumstances. I don't know whether there is a God or not, but it are the followers who shape the religion to what it is. Some can do it in a way that is injust for us - for example the so called Jihad, the violent Jihad that is, for it can also mean an internal struggle to become a better Muslim -, but that does not represent an entire religion. That does not mean we should ignore it. Eventually, it does has some religious grounds.
But in most cases, other factors are far more important to do something wrong than religion. The Taliban, for example, was not only Islam-grounded, to say it that way. It also had to do with certain social troubles - poverty, or the feeling of fear and political instability. The Soviet attack on Afganistan is a good example of that. It was something that boosted the popularity of fundamental Islamists in that country.
Same thing in many Arab countries. A high unemployment, poverty, a corrupt government, that are all causes for Islamists to arise. Especially the poor population of Arab countries was - and is - very enthusiastic about the plans of Islamists, who said and say they want(ed) no corruption anymore, a better political structure, and a lower employement-rate. So it is more than just religion. In that way, Islam does not have a special place among religions.
The way to stop Islamic fundamentalism is therefore not starting a war in Iraq - although that is sadly enough far too late now -, but changing internal structures of certain Islamic countries. The fact that the West is not very popular in for example Arab countries, also goes with the fact that the West helps the regimes in those countries to stay in power, for economic reasons or for the fear of instability in the region that can have a negative effect on Westerners in those countries, but can also have a negative effect on Israel or other Western states bordering the Arab countries.
Defender, welcome to A2K.
Rather than castigate you for your ignorance of cosmology and evolution, I'll just ask you to answer a simple question:
Did God make the universe out of nothing or something?
I think what has confused me most in these past few days in finding out that Khan of Pakistan first stole nuclear secrets from the Netherlands, then built a huge inventory of devices used to make nuclear bombs which he then sold to the three most oppressive governments in the world, Libya, Iran and North Korea. He is quoted as saying he did not see anything wrong about selling nuclear secrets to a Muslim country (I guess he must agree that selling them to North Korea might be just for the money.) making him to my mind another Muslim terrorist. He was the one who added the Muslim label to the discussion, you see, he believes that Muslims stealing for other Muslim is good. Now one would expect that Muslims around the world would roundly condemn this man and his activities but they do not. He has been pardoned of his crimes by his government and Islam, as a people, is silent.
It is quite possible that this man, Khan, has released the fire that will consume all of us, yet Islam is.........
Oh, and here in America, as our intelligence services watched the ships taking the material to Iran and North Korea, we geared up for a war against a nation that had no weapons of mass destruction. It wasn't until the shipments to Libya were seized that it was acknowledged that the greatest possible purveyor of WMD's to Islamic terrorists was not Iraq but Pakistan. And the word from the Bush government regarding retaliation against Pakistan??
Still monitoring the situation, I guess........
Joe Nation
Defender wrote:As a 'newbie' there are several posts I would like to respond to...but let's get to the most important one:
There is a God!
Welcome to A2K.
How do you know there is a God?
Exactly my point, Terry. Exactly.
Although, to call it an explosion??? In explosions the facts don't lie: 100% result in chaos and destruction, not order and complexity. 100%.
Frank, design requires a 'Designer'...I call the Designer God.
Exactly my point, Terry. Exactly.
Although, to call it an explosion??? In explosions the facts don't lie: 100% result in chaos and destruction, not order and complexity. 100%.
Frank, design requires a 'Designer'...I call the Designer God.
Defender wrote:Exactly my point, Terry. Exactly.
Although, to call it an explosion??? In explosions the facts don't lie: 100% result in chaos and destruction, not order and complexity. 100%.
Frank, design requires a 'Designer'...I call the Designer God.
Defender
Then that Designer being itself a design would therefore require a designer, and on and on we go.
Can't it be that people have different beliefs and let it go? No one is going to convince anyone to change their core beliefs on a message board. Pointing out the flaws of anothers beliefs does nothing but belittle your own.
Defender: there can be a God and there can be no God, but there is no person living today who can prove the one and can say the other opinion is a lie. And we can go on, and on, etc....Why discussing this endless discussion?
Mesquite - you're claiming the Designer was designed...not me. We can see and study the Universe...and what we see is complex design.
Rick - the Universe is complex, what I'm saying is not. Sorry if the conversation strikes a nerve. I'm not diving into religion or philosophy. What I'm saying is - make a point to learn something of the Universe, then try to grasp the volume and complexity of it, and then form your own opinion:
1) Design
2) Accidental result of the explosion of nothing without a cause
Hey, the Flat Earth Society is a <I>legitimate</I> organization in operation today. They're out there.
McGentrix wrote:Can't it be that people have different beliefs and let it go? No one is going to convince anyone to change their core beliefs on a message board. Pointing out the flaws of anothers beliefs does nothing but belittle your own.
You are putting me on, right McG?
Defender wrote:Mesquite - you're claiming the Designer was designed...not me. We can see and study the Universe...and what we see is complex design.
You are saying that the universe was designed and that the designer was God and yet God was not designed. Have I got that right so far? So God was what, just magically became, from ...nothing?
My focus has been on the Universe:
Study it, consider it - then whether you use common sense or scientific methods the conclusion is obvious. I've ventured no further than this.
Defender: it didn't strike a nerve :wink: , it's just that it is a sort of normal remark: you can wonder and you can find your OWN conclusion about God, the Universe...but there is no way of knowing for sure. I'm not saying that it is a dull discussion, but you always have opposite opinions and there is no right or wrong. It's just frustrating! I thought about all this so long, talked with so many people, and the conclusion? It's useless to argue about, you can make people think but it's not a case of wrong or right. But it seems that you want to make people think, and not convince them, so I'm just babbling
Why do I always come up with such a conclusion at the end of my reply?... :wink:
Defender wrote: We can see and study the Universe...and what we see is complex design.
No, Defender, that is not so.
We can see that the universe is complex, but I defy you to show that it was designed.
That is something you simply choose to read into it.
We do not know if the universe was designed -- or if it simply has always been.
