Got this in an email, thought it was interesting.

[Batz Kage]

This country did and does primarily believe in God. If you don't, shut up. I and most people don't care if praying offends you, because if it does offend you there is something severely wrong with you as a person. You don't wanna pray? Don't. You wanna pray to a differend God? Go ahead! Just stfu and leave the Christians alone.

If someone were to post the ten commandments of the Satanist's Bible on a governmental building how many christans do you think would bitch? it's the same shoe on a different foot.
I myself am a christian of sorts, but I stand up for almost every religion found in the US. I beleive in freedom of religion to the max.

It's like how idiots get offended when someone says Happy Hollidays rather than Merry Christmas... Yes they are offended because the celebration they stole from another religion is not mentioned. If you celebrate the event by another name then would you like to hear it called Christmas? If someone called it by its pagan name the christians would complain, but they say it's stupid when other religions complain about their crap..

ok I lost subject somewhere in there, religion is one thing I don't like to disscuss as there are too many people without real opinions & most of them who have an opinion have bias ones. I believe in compromising.

Anyways, I'm going to finish reading this thread now.

[Batz Kage]

But my point was that people were a hell of a lot more religious then and look at all the things that went on there...

Also because a girl has sex now she's a whore? So it's ok for men to do it for centuries but not for women? That's another thing religion got us nowhere with, womens rights... Putting religion in school isn't the answer to the worlds problems. If you ask me it makes them worse... Religion cheapens human morals by saying if we didn't read the Bible we would all be out killing people and robbing people. Something that went on a hell of a lot more in religious times.

I once tried to defend the idea that the bible instilled morals onto people, but my friend took a big bite out of my a** on that one & pretty much I've scrapped that notion ever since.

On that, Satanist have a rule for it; if Sin is natural, it is human nature, then Sin cannot be wrong. I can't exactly remember what my point was..I think I need more sleep -_- Sorry for the incompleteness of this statement..good night.

[gubi-gubi]

I once tried to defend the idea that the bible instilled morals onto people, but my friend took a big bite out of my a** on that one & pretty much I've scrapped that notion ever since.

On that, Satanist have a rule for it; if Sin is natural, it is human nature, then Sin cannot be wrong. I can't exactly remember what my point was..I think I need more sleep -_- Sorry for the incompleteness of this statement..good night.

If humans were all inherently evil then we wouldn't of survived long enough to even be here contemplating it. We have evolved with compassionate instincts that help us nurture each other and look after each other. If we didn't and were all out to hurt and kill each other then the species wouldn't have survived the harsh conditions nature has thrown at us. If you look back at all the atrocities in human history then nearly all have a religious reason attached to them...

[Batz Kage]

If humans were all inherently evil then we wouldn't of survived long enough to even be here contemplating it. We have evolved with compassionate instincts that help us nurture each other and look after each other. If we didn't and were all out to hurt and kill each other then the species wouldn't have survived the harsh conditions nature has thrown at us. If you look back at all the atrocities in human history then nearly all have a religious reason attached to them...

I agree, & the fact that religion was the cause of needless slaughter is the reason I hate (organized) religion.
Hell, one of the popes was said to have been possesed by Satan, what kinda crap is that?

But, still I can't shake my beliefs that God does exsist, even if he abandoned us long ago, he is still somewhere out their.
I say God, but really I mean a creator..
Which is all up there with the meaning of life & all that other bullcrap. If God made us, then what made God. Science is getting closer to proving that when you smash non-material atoms enough you can make matterial atoms (I believe that to be what the report meant).

I believe that a creator was scultped from a mass of energy & from that energy he too built exsistance.
But really now, there's no reasoning that can truely explain where we came from.

And I think the bible is non-sense. In the old testament God was spiteful, he ruled with an iron fist. Appearently people started to go against the grain & then someone decided to write how compassionate God is in the new testament.
Which is a flaw I have in discussing religion with most people. Many of them only know the new testament, while I know a bit more of the old testament.

[gubi-gubi]

Science is getting closer to proving that when you smash non-material atoms enough you can make matterial atoms (I believe that to be what the report meant).

I think I read that too that they have built a machine called Atlas I think that has the power to create an explosion inside of it similar to the big bang and the experiment would then prove the big bang theory that we all came from one bang of nothingness as matter can be created from such a powerful 'bang'.

And I think the bible is non-sense. In the old testament God was spiteful, he ruled with an iron fist. Appearently people started to go against the grain & then someone decided to write how compassionate God is in the new testament.
Which is a flaw I have in discussing religion with most people. Many of them only know the new testament, while I know a bit more of the old testament.

As for the Old Testament God I truly believe that if the whole thing is true then the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are totally separate beings (a fact early Christian gnostic gospel writers even seemed to acknowledge). I read a review of a book I keep meaning to track down that claims to prove the Bible has not one but three different Gods in it that have been wrongly lumped together.

Lastly though I think it's all too easy to say we were made by a creator. Something I learnt in philosophy classes was that humans can only know what exists in their world. Like they can only apply the laws of their world to stuff they don't know. Meaning we see life on this world 'created' by parents for example so we presume we must have originally been created by a 'father' (which is why God is called God the father) as well...

[Cidien]

I've never understood the big bang. What was there in the first place to go bang?

[Batz Kage]

I've never understood the big bang. What was there in the first place to go bang?

That's the thing there didn't have to be anything, the theroy (as I've always heard it said) nothing exploded.


One thing I love about Old Testament is that it indirectly hints at the fact God can be killed (he was all kinds of freaky guards, like flaming serphants) & when I read about how Satan still walks the earth it sent chills down my spine.

I would love to read the book you speak of Gubi.

I personally, through out all of my changes of religion, have never hated or truely disliked Satan. Actually I've read some pieces of the old testament that made me nearly look up to him. Christians seem to greatly over exagerate the evils behind Lucifer & Satanist.
I believe in a needed balance of right & wrong (not so much as good & evil).

But, I think there being 3 Gods would explain a lot, why there's one that's so kind & forgiving, yet another that had a man mauled by a bear for laughing at a bald guy(???).

[gubi-gubi]

The strangest is how Yahweh was like 8ft tall and needed a tent to sleep in. Hmmm not something the most perfect and all powerful being ever would need. Or how the Gods or even angels appeared in flaming chariots... Surely they could just appear? Sound more like pysical beings than spiritual ones.

[Batz Kage]

The strangest is how Yahweh was like 8ft tall and needed a tent to sleep in. Hmmm not something the most perfect and all powerful being ever would need. Or how the Gods or even angels appeared in flaming chariots... Surely they could just appear? Sound more like pysical beings than spiritual ones.

Everytime I read something from the Old Testament about God I get this feeling that it's really about a real living king.
All evidence just seems to point in that direction, so you must wonder if the stories are nothing more than an exaggeration of an actual being.

I think if you try hard enough though & bend the lies enough you can meld all deities to seem like they are the same.

[gubi-gubi]

Everytime I read something from the Old Testament about God I get this feeling that it's really about a real living king.
All evidence just seems to point in that direction, so you must wonder if the stories are nothing more than an exaggeration of an actual being.

I think if you try hard enough though & bend the lies enough you can meld all deities to seem like they are the same.

Well that is sort of ment to be the official story of Jesus in the New Testament. He was just a man, a king who wanted to set up his lineage and take thrown as the 'King' of the Jews. When he died (if you believe he did die) the stories that circulated made no reference to him being a God until Constantine sat down and had to make a religion for the whole of Rome to stop the wars between the Pagans and the Christians. He merged the two and made Jesus Holy so the pagans couldn't criticise Jesus being just a man. This then ment he couldn't of been married or have any reference to sex so he could be a standalone God and not the starter of a lineage that would mean the Catholic church had no right to claim the only way to heaven was from them.

[JunkieJoe]

I didnt read the thread, just saw bits and pieces, and the thing about big bang is like this: universe is expanding, from a point outwards, its a proven thing... also its very interesting subject if u guys want to look into it, this whole God discussion aside (and beleive me, I can debate the God issue til cows come home, and I will never run out of steam) read some books like that Stephen Hawk's book, "A brief history of time" a great read... you will see how telescopes can actually see the past... because of light speed and all, you can actually watch the universe in the past...

as for God... if Jesus known that Judas was gonna betray him? why did he let him? because Jesus was suppose to die for human kind to save as all? There for Judas was born with that mission to betray him from the start, implanted by God to do so... so whos the betrayer, God or Judas... I thought about it a long time ago, but recently there were those 1700year old scrolls that were finally translated suggesting that Judas did what Jesus told him to do... which makes sense when you think about it... if God/Jesus were all knowning, bringing dead to life etc etc... they would have seen through Judas if he was a lier...

but anyhow, what does the Pope do when the info hits the media.... in his easter speech calls Judas a bunch of names etc etc...

may I remind you people that it is because of Rome and Pope and Religion that the fact that earth revolves around the sun was not adopted as fact for like 300 years...

I can sit here and poke hole in religion and bible all day long... but... Silent Hill movie calls...

[Cidien]

Ya i'm going to the silent hill movie tonight. =P

I still don't understand though. The universe is ever expanding? Ever expanding to where? What's there to expand to? You can't just make something of nothing.

[Zagatto]

That's the same question that gets me with God.
Ok... where did the universe start? Who gave birth to God?
I find it easier to just believe that the universe just is than to have some sort of cosmic conciousness that decides how things are built.

[gubi-gubi]

Ya i'm going to the silent hill movie tonight. =P

I still don't understand though. The universe is ever expanding? Ever expanding to where? What's there to expand to? You can't just make something of nothing.

Says who? We know very little about the universe. The fact we are expanding is true. There is nowhere to expand to in theory as space is infinite. There has been a recent discovery of dark matter which is basically non matter that is causing us to expand faster and faster. We also apparently have a dormant super black hole at the center of our galaxy that could start feeding again at any minute (although it would take ages and ages to affect us).

Back onto Jesus selecting Judas to betray him. It's actually mentioned in the Judas Gospel (a gospel the church condemed as heresy) that Jesus told him to betray him to set his spirit free. It seems to me Jesus needed to escape and staged his own death. This ment Judas had to be forced to betray him. The fact that Judas was evil is hardly even mentioned in any Bible texts. It was played upon to create anti-semetic tension between Christians and Jews. Portraying Judas as a money crazed Jew who sold out his Lord...

[Cidien]

The one thing that's absolute (on earth) is that you can't create something of nothing and you can't get rid of anything either, it just changes form. For instance the atom bomb seems to make whole buildings dissappear. It doesn't though, it merely changes from matter to energy.