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First off, I freely admit to making up the 99% just to represent that the fingerprints thing is a thing that pretty much everyone excepts. Secondly, I think mathematician Louis Pasteur put it best, and I'm paraphrasing here- "If you believe in God, and it turns out there's no God, you've lost nothing. If you don't believe in God and it turns out God does in fact exist, you've lost quite a bit."
Knutreturns said: Spoken like the true Greatest RDCW Champ!
All hail King Snarf!
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I was joking along with the statistics bit.
Quote:
"If you believe in God, and it turns out there's no God, you've lost nothing. If you don't believe in God and it turns out God does in fact exist, you've lost quite a bit."
That is all fine and good but I don't believe anything will be lost regardless. This is just my personal philosophy:
There is no way any of the religions have "it" right. Just personally, Roman Catholics have a real asshole for a god. To have a true religous relationship with a god is impossible because we have no fucking clue what we're dealing with. [edit]In the end, religous beliefs are just the ways people define how they deal with the whole of the Unknowable.[/ edit] I just figure, why bother? The important thing is the spirituality.
Anyway, there's another saying that I can use as an analogy for my opinion on religion. I think someone here might have written it. "If a person is going to cheat, they're going to cheat no matter what you do or who you are." People are people and they will be good or bad as they find is appropriate to their life. Why is it that people go to churches? Maybe some go to validate themselves against their regrets. I tend to lean more towards Nietzche's spiral of existance where it is a waste of time to dwell on regrets - learn from them or repeat them incessantly and identically.
I don't know where I'm going with this anymore. It's not about the existance or non-existance of god; agnosticism for me is about the inconsequentiality of god's existance. A god by nature is unknowable and impossible to understand. God can do whatever it desires and I'll just worry about the Greater Happiness Principle and finding spiritual satisfaction in my own life.
Last edited by Uschi; 2006-07-09 4:08 AM.
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"I am convinced that this world is of no importance, and that the only people who care about dates are imbeciles and Spanish teachers." -- Jean Arp, 1921
"If Jesus came back and saw what people are doing in his name, he would never never stop throwing up." - Max von Sydow, "Hannah and Her Sisters"
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Quote:
King Snarf said:
I think mathematician Louis Pasteur put it best, and I'm paraphrasing here- "If you believe in God, and it turns out there's no God, you've lost nothing. If you don't believe in God and it turns out God does in fact exist, you've lost quite a bit."
Why?
The way I see it:
1.If you were a good person in life, then it shouldn't matter if you believe in God, Satan, Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster.
2.Any "heaven" that would deny genuinely good people based on such a trivial divergence of personal belief isn't worth being a part of.
3.Believing in God so that you've "lost nothing" if he doesn't exist is pretty stupid, anyway.
MisterJLA is RACKing awesome.
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Quote:
Animalman said:
1.If you were a good person in life, then it shouldn't matter if you believe in God, Satan, Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster.
2.Any "heaven" that would deny genuinely good people based on such a trivial divergence of personal belief isn't worth being a part of.
3.Believing in God so that you've "lost nothing" if he doesn't exist is pretty stupid, anyway.
I never understood the idea of needing to believe in god to get into heaven. if god exists then he would have to be much more evolved and advanced than we are. so petty things like pride wouldn't matter, we would be judged not on what we prayed to, or even if we prayed, but on the content of our actions.
Bow ties are coool.
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For once, I have to agree with Snarf--But moreso with Louis Pasteur.
Even if God isn't real, something I don't believe for a moment, I'd still have nothing to lose in the long run. At the end of my life, I'll either be faced with judgement or anti-consciousness. If my entire life's effort of living is just built up to a realm of nothingness, then I pretty much don't care about what happens in it. Because, at that point, it would be proven as little more than a gracing period. So even if I lived my life totally by theism, only to find out there is no God in the end, it still wouldn't matter. I'd still be dead and not giving a crap-- Incapable of giving a crap.
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Animalman said:
Why?
The way I see it:
1.If you were a good person in life, then it shouldn't matter if you believe in God, Satan, Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster.
That all depends on how people interpret what they believe in and exactly which "god" you speak of. Through those different beliefs come different belief systems. I realize you're the type to accept the lip-service of anyone who says they're anything; like if a person said they were Christian, even though they lead a very unChristian lifestyle, you'd say, "Okay." But if you'd retreat from this kind of apathy for a moment, you should realize that people who say they're Satanists and don't actually follow in his footsteps can't be considered real Satanists. If you meet a person who says they're a Satanist and then they proceed to follow the law of the land, which (for the most part) is uncannily similar to Judeo-Christian philosophies, then that person can't accurately be described as Satanic. So, if you're trying to use the lapsed Satanists as an example of a "good" non-Christian (and I'm only using Christianity as an example because it's theistic), then your entire argument is faulty.
Also, I'm pretty sure that I've heard you say before that you don't accredit the more commonly accepted grounds of what's considered "good" to have originated from any religion. That, in and of itself, makes your inferrence of "good" and what "good" is even more nebulous. I say this keeping in mind that you were comparing leading a "good" life to a theist religion's standard of what's "good".
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2.Any "heaven" that would deny genuinely good people based on such a trivial divergence of personal belief isn't worth being a part of.
Now I know you're talking about Christianity (or its archetype anyway). The venom in your tone is palpable enough.
Before I outline why I feel this statement over-stretches what it contends to be "trivial" or how it interprets the interpretation of what Christianity posits philosophically, please explain to me exactly what you feel the "trivial divergence" is?
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3.Believing in God so that you've "lost nothing" if he doesn't exist is pretty stupid, anyway.
You don't know. Meaning, I now get to ask the question:
"Why?"
Why is it stupid? Especially if I have nothing to lose?
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But what if Bhuddism is right? What if Islam is right? What if the Greeks and Romans had it right? What about the Egyptians? The Aborginies? Hindus? Jews?
There are so many "right" religions in the world (and more in the history of the world) that it seems silly to say "this 2 thousand year old edited book is more right than the other acient holy books."
Bow ties are coool.
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Quote:
King Snarf said:
I like that whole "There's no proof" line agnostics and atheists always spout. There's no proof to the theory that no two sets of fingerprints are alike, but that doesn't stop 99% of the world's population from accepting it.
Snarf, please feel free to fuck off!
Atheists like myself dont spout of lines, I'll think you'll find its religious people who spout off lines always trying to fucking convert people!
I cant say I have ever seen someone standing in the street or knocking on peoples doors saying "Have you ever not thought about god?"
Oh and of course there was never that great tv evangelist who shouted about not sending him money so you can not believe in god!
As for the fingerprints thing, there is a hell of a lot more physical proof that thats true than there is any proof that god is real!
The fact that so many religions will argue over who's god/gods are real provides ample proof that god is only what people believe he/she is, not an actual physical/spiritual being.
It also proves the arrogance of religious sects believing that their religion is more true than others when not one single one of them can physically prove that they are right!
But please, feel free to spout away!
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Quote:
Animalman said:
2.Any "heaven" that would deny genuinely good people based on such a trivial divergence of personal belief isn't worth being a part of.
And that line perfectly sums things up.
For instance, if a person does nothing but good acts, never says a bad word to anybody & lives a totally virtuos life, but doesnt believe in god, they would be denied entry into heaven, is that what Pasteur was saying?
And then we have Pariah, a guy who professes to believe in god, which is his choice, and something I have no problem with, but on the net at least, he treats people like shit.
But despite that, he would get into heaven?
Sorry, but what kind of just & kind "god" is that?
One thing that has been said about "god" is that he gave us personal freedom, yet the basic dictate so many religious people say, is that "If you dont believe, you will go to hell" of something like that.
Doesnt sound much like personal freedom if you are told "You have to believe if you wanna go to heaven!"
Virtue should be the basis of whether you do get into heaven (if it exists), not how many times you prey or go to church a week.
Wars have been started over religion, wheres the virtue in that?
What was so virtuous about the crusades?
At the end of the day any religion is man made, and thus the dictates it follows were made by man, not a god!
Maybe just maybe god doesnt want man speaking for him all the time, and thats why he gave them personal freedom!
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Quote:
King Snarf said:
mathematician Louis Pasteur
Are we thinking of the same Louis Pasteur here, cause I dont remember him being a mathematician?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur
Nope, nothing about it there!
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Quote:
Nowhereman said:
Quote:
King Snarf said:
mathematician Louis Pasteur
Are we thinking of the same Louis Pasteur here, cause I dont remember him being a mathematician?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pasteur
Nope, nothing about it there!
maybe he was an amateur math guy, you know counting his bottles of soiled milk by himself, with no outside help.
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Blaise Pascal. See why I don't let these people represent what I believe? 
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For all the shit I give Sammitch, he quite frankly is one of the most respectful of other peoples choices.
It really surprised me when I found out what his dad did for a living, but then again maybe I shouldnt have been!
My beef isnt with christianity (or any other religion), its with the way some people try to push those beliefs onto others, or only follow which parts of the religion suit them, while ignoring other parts!
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The way I see it, you have no reason to take what I believe seriously if it doesn't have a positive impact upon the way I live and if it doesn't motivate me to have a positive impact on those around me. I'll be the first to say I am not a good person. My faith makes me better than Sammitch a la carte. Make whatever you want out of that.
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Quote:
Pariah said:
I realize you're the type to accept the lip-service of anyone who says they're anything; like if a person said they were Christian, even though they lead a very unChristian lifestyle, you'd say, "Okay."
You seem to believe that there's one and only one way to live a Christian life, and that anyone who strays even slightly from that ideal isn't Christian. Frankly, I doubt even you would meet your own ridiculous standards, but that's not the point. The point is, you are focused on labels. I am not. If someone wants to call him or herself something, I don't really care. Their actions are what's going to determine my view of them.
Quote:
So, if you're trying to use the lapsed Satanists as an example of a "good" non-Christian (and I'm only using Christianity as an example because it's theistic), then your entire argument is faulty.
You spent an entire paragraph talking about Satanists, but you didn't actually explain why my argument is faulty.
I don't know any self-proclaimed Satanists, but if, hypothetically, there was a person who believed in and/or prayed to Satan, but still followed the general guidelines of being a "good" person, then, in my mind, that person would deserve the rewards of the afterlife, assuming any exist. Their label wouldn't matter.
Quote:
Also, I'm pretty sure that I've heard you say before that you don't accredit the more commonly accepted grounds of what's considered "good" to have originated from any religion.
You're correct. I don't.
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That, in and of itself, makes your inferrence of "good" and what "good" is even more nebulous.
The concept of "good" is, itself, somewhat nebulous.
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I say this keeping in mind that you were comparing leading a "good" life to a theist religion's standard of what's "good".
Atheists may have sex out of wedlock, have abortions, condone homosexuality(or even be homosexuals themselves), and maintain no direct relationship with God. This is true.
My point from the beginning, however, was that, to me, if those things could keep you out of heaven, despite a lifetime of kindness, charity and goodwill...well, then heaven isn't worth aspiring to. It's a faulty ideal.
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Now I know you're talking about Christianity (or its archetype anyway). The venom in your tone is palpable enough.
I made no mention of Christianity. Christianity is the primary religion in this country, but it's far from the only one, and heaven is not a concept that originated with Christianity. I seem to recall you making that same mistake before.
As for "venom", I think you're projecting your own feelings on the subject onto me. If there was a tone to my post it was a result of Snarf's silly little diatribe(which, in typical fashion, he made a fool out of himself with).
Quote:
Before I outline why I feel this statement over-stretches what it contends to be "trivial" or how it interprets the interpretation of what Christianity posits philosophically, please explain to me exactly what you feel the "trivial divergence" is?
Belief in a specific, convoluted and outdated idea of the almighty.
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Why is it stupid? Especially if I have nothing to lose?
If you believe in something because you genuinely think it's true, that's fine. If you believe in something because you're afraid to not believe otherwise, that's cowardly.
MisterJLA is RACKing awesome.
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Quote:
Uschi said:
Quote:
Captain Sweden said:
I think more like a deist than an agnostic these days.
How come?
I suppose there's a God/gods, but he or she, or them, don't do much with the world. Good people come to heaven, bad to hell, but no one is rewarded or punished here on Earth, except by other persons. I'm too skeptic to believe in one certain religion, but want the comfert of believing in an after-life.
"Batman is only meaningful as an answer to a world which in its basics is chaotic and in the hands of the wrong people, where no justice can be found. I think it's very suitable to our perception of the world's condition today... Batman embodies the will to resist evil" -Frank Miller
"Conan, what's the meaning of life?"
"To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women!"
-Conan the Barbarian
"Well, yeah."
-Jason E. Perkins
"If I had a dime for every time Pariah was right about something I'd owe twenty cents."
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"Fair enough. I defer to your expertise."
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Rack MisterJLA!
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fair enough YOU CHEAP SELL-OUT PANSEY! 
Old men, fear me! You will shatter under my ruthless apathetic assault!
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"I am convinced that this world is of no importance, and that the only people who care about dates are imbeciles and Spanish teachers." -- Jean Arp, 1921
"If Jesus came back and saw what people are doing in his name, he would never never stop throwing up." - Max von Sydow, "Hannah and Her Sisters"
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