Do you believe in God?

[homeforsummer]

Yeah I don't think Jesus was actually born on the 25th of December.

Does that mean it's okay to not believe that Christmas is the birth of Christ? If they've got the day of the celebration wrong, when are people supposed to celebrate Christ's birth?

 

[Sach]

Does that mean it's okay to not believe that Christmas is the birth of Christ? If they've got the day of the celebration wrong, when are people supposed to celebrate Christ's birth?

Every day?

 

[TankAss95]

Does that mean it's okay to not believe that Christmas is the birth of Christ? If they've got the day of the celebration wrong, when are people supposed to celebrate Christ's birth?

Christmas is the celebration of Jesus' birth, wether the actual day is accurate or not isn't a primary issue. I celebrate the birth of Jesus on Christmas day, although Jesus was supposed to be born in August.

I'm not sure though.

EDIT:
@Sach_F1: 👍 true enough.

 

[homeforsummer]

Christmas is the celebration of Jesus' birth, wether the actual day is accurate or not isn't a primary issue. I celebrate the birth of Jesus on Christmas day, although Jesus was supposed to be born in August.

So essentially, we use December 25th because we're used to it. Or because it happened to be the same date as a pagan Winter festival.

Every day?

Is that a rhetorical question? If you celebrate Jesus' birth every day, why pick an arbitrary (and almost certainly inaccurate) date in December to celebrate it at all?

 

[nitrorocks]

The bible doesn't exactly explain it from what I remember when I last read that part

 

[Sach]

Is that a rhetorical question? If you celebrate Jesus' birth every day, why pick an arbitrary (and almost certainly accurate) date in December to celebrate it at all?

I agree that the date is arbitrary. The reason to have a date is to make note of the event's importance.

 

[Sureboss]

So I'm guessing you guys don't believe that Christmas Is the birth of Christ?

In light of recent political events, I now announce this time of festive cheer, Kimjongmas.

Not to mention the pagan roots of the festival we all celebrate at this time of year. Always wondered why Christmas is on the 25th every year, but Easter is an arbitrary Sunday some time in Spring. If Jesus was born on a set date, like the 25th, why is his death not celebrated on a set date too? Alternatively, if the Friday/Sunday/Monday of Easter is an important aspect, why no set day of the week some time in Winter for Christmas?

Expecting accuracy from the bible is much like expecting accuracy from HMRC, National Rail or Emile Heskey.

Sach - Yet the event isn't important enough to have a specific date, even though it was all (allegedly) recorded? Maybe the calendars that year had a mis-print.

 

[TankAss95]

So essentially, we use December 25th because we're used to it. Or because it happened to be the same date as a pagan Winter festival.

Mate I don't know. It isn't a big deal either.

 

[homeforsummer]

Mate I don't know. It isn't a big deal either.

Big enough to celebrate it...

 

[TankAss95]

Big enough to celebrate it...

Yeah, it is a big deal to celebrate it (massive for us Christians) but the actual date isn't.

 

[Tesla]

Expecting accuracy from the bible is much like expecting accuracy from HMRC, National Rail or Emile Heskey.

 

[Sach]

A funny comment, however inaccurate it may be. Poor Heskey...

 

[homeforsummer]

Yeah, it is a big deal to celebrate it (massive for us Christians) but the actual date isn't.

And yet it's remained the same for hundreds of years. The date is clearly important enough to keep.

 

[TankAss95]

And yet it's remained the same for hundreds of years. The date is clearly important enough to keep.

You are missing the point that I'm putting across.
The 25th is routinely kept due to it being a holiday. Christmas is Christmas, it's tradition. The actual date on which it is held on is not really relevant to Christians.

If Christmas was celebrated in the summer time it wouldn't make that much difference in terms of Christianity (I think).

Anyway have a great Christmas! 👍 I hope you have a great new year, too.

 

[homeforsummer]

You are missing the point that I'm putting across.

I'm not, I'm deliberately challenging you to get a straight answer. It just took you a while to provide one.

Anyway have a great Christmas! 👍 I hope you have a great new year, too.

Likewise

 

[niky]

We have a different viewpoint on this, that is all that can be said. You view Judaeism as man's creation, and then Christianity a logical response by man concerning Jesus, etc. I view Judaeism as what was created by God's chosen people who went their own way. It's not that I can't see your perspective, I just don't believe that it is the correct one, much as you would say to me.

What is the correct perspective? While Church leaders are eager to make it seem that Christianity was born of a whole cloth and has largely remained unchanged to this day (even though it is still changing), that's far from the truth. The wide variety of sects (including the gnostics) and even the variety of sources within the Bible point to a movement that had started in scattered communities, spread out and then re-coalesced, though some smaller parts of the movement died out.

"God's Chosen People" didn't go "their own way". They still follow the religion as set in the Torah (though Judaiesm has also changed a bit over time). The only difference is that they don't believe Jesus' claim to divinity. And, anyway, over time, Christianity became a religion of the non-Jewish... non-chosen peoples.

It's not a perspective. It's merely what is.

While it is true that some Christian groups use scare tactics, I have never personally had anyone attempt to scare me into believing. I came to belief based on the laws that I believed were already written on my heart, ones that I had already felt conviction about, and I compared them to Jesus's teachings, finding those teachings to be trustworthy. That was my start, one very small part of it. And I will never be surprised to hear people talk of the many atrocities committed in the name of Christ because he said they would occur, and to be weary of following every person that might come along claiming to do things in his name.

Let's see... you're possibly American... possibly a born Catholic or Christian of some denomination. You weren't born into a world where priests forbid condoms because they're sinful, where brown masses huddle into small churches praying to a Caucasian blue-eyed Jesus and where priests are often condemned of political meddling and/or sexual impropriety?

Aren't you warned... in the Bible... against following those who proclaim to be holy but are actually the Anti-Christ?

It's your duty as a Christian to doubt any Earthbound "authority" on Christ.

You may be surprised to know that I am highly skeptical of churches, preachers, and religious groups, etc. I am not interested in people who are looking to follow their own purposes rather than the purposes of God, and I often have a hard time finding groups of believers that I feel are being truly convicted of their ways and who are attempting to live out Christ's teachings.

On this we agree.

"Yes, you would..." if you saw those things with your own eyes?

It would have to be convincingly stereoscopic, yes. Though eyes can be fooled. I have a very active brain and suffer from visual and auditory hallucinations at night, very convincingly real ones, sometimes accompanied by strong emotions, due to interrupted sleep cycles. I have learned not to trust a "feeling" of reality and to take census of all my senses when I find myself in a strange or unusual situation.

But what if I told you that I had an experience with something, felt the presence of something, saw it (though it appeared to be almost transparent), when I was not even remotely looking for such a thing, and that my wife was standing right beside me and I asked her if she saw this thing, and she confirmed it, and when the thing descended upon us I could only say to her that I felt like God was in the room with us, her confirming that exact feeling, and I suddenly felt a very warm sensation all through my body as very warm tears also streamed down my face, though I was not sad in the slightest or 'emotionally crying', and that when I looked over at my wife's face she was doing the same thing, with an expression of joy that I have never seen on anyone's face before? Would that count for anything? What if I also said that even in my darkest periods of doubt that I have tried to deny the experience and my wife refuses to?

The purely subjective, even that which is shared, is evidence of something, but unless examined in its totality, cannot be taken as positive evidence. I've been to charismatic meetings in which such sensations are obviously present and shared, and I've been in situations where such sensations and/or similar negative sensations were also present and shared.

But they're just that... sensations. Sensations which can be triggered, something which I've had to study due to my condition, and I've come to recognize some of (my personal) triggers and some of the general triggers.

Magic, sleight-of-hand, subliminal messaging, even hauntings and metaphysical experiences... all rely on triggering responses within the brain. If you learn to recognize how and why these are triggered, then it all becomes slightly less magical.

I don't deny the subjective. But I try to understand it and its causes. Does it take some of the mystery away? Why, yes, yes it does. Does it make them any less real? Not really. You can deconstruct a man into an interlocking mass of chemical mechanisms, but that doesn't make him any less of a thinking, feeling (feelings which include love, good will and, yes... a sense of wonder) being.

There was a couple in our church who were unable to conceive. They eventually gave up on trying and were in their mid-50's when the husband heard God's voice in his dreams telling him to try again to conceive, because He had three children planned for them. What if I told you that this was actually very upsetting for the couple since it was very difficult for them to go through so many years having given up, but that when they tried again the wife was able to conceive three years in a row, and they now have these three kids as physical evidence and validity? But see, you will write it off, because now it comes down to this person's word, not scientific evidence, although you could consult their doctors concerning this matter.

You're talking to a "miracle" baby. I don't doubt that they did have babies, nor that they feel that God is responsible.

But, you must ask... what, qualitatively, sets one couple apart from the tens (hundreds) of thousands of infertile couples who pray every night for a child?

Why would God only send to one couple and not others? Surely not all of the rest are unfaithful or undeserving?

 

[CodeRedR51]

Good article:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/12/27/why-i-am-an-atheist-m-h/

And before anyone lashes out at me, don't expect me to respond because I don't like talking about this stuff with anyone. Just thought it was good enough to share. Leave it at that.

 

[CSLACR]

Question: How come people 2000 years ago got to see Jesus walk the Earth and perform miracles (making it incredibly easy to see proof of God's existence) and everyone else is stuck expected to just "believe" in all of it?
How come "real" prophets stopped existing long before we had a chance to see any of their work?

I thought God said he was fair? It's not even close to fair to show some people absolute proof of yourself and then just arbitrarily stop one day now is it?

This question hasn't been properly answered in 23 years for me yet.

 

[Sam48]

Question: How come people 2000 years ago got to see Jesus walk the Earth and perform miracles (making it incredibly easy to see proof of God's existence) and everyone else is stuck expected to just "believe" in all of it?
How come "real" prophets stopped existing long before we had a chance to see any of their work?

Well, according to scripture, when the world ends Jesus will come back again. Nonetheless, there were a few documented miracles that came after Jesus:

http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/lanciano.html

I thought God said he was fair? It's not even close to fair to show some people absolute proof of yourself and then just arbitrarily stop one day now is it?

That's simply your definition of "fair". If Jesus came to us for each and every generation, everyone would become board of him and eventually stop believing all together. It would be like a magician showcasing the same act over and over. No one would know how he did it, but by the tenth or eleventh time he preformed it, no one would really care how anyway.

God won't just come down and prove to everyone he exists. If that really happened, then over time no one would believe he existed.

This question hasn't been properly answered in 23 years for me yet.

And now it has.

 

[Lain]

God won't just come down and prove to everyone he exists. If that really happened, then over time no one would believe he existed.

Care to explain your logic behind this bit? To me it seems the exact opposite... more and more people are beginning to doubt his existence, due to the fact that there's no proof.

I don't see how there being constant, irrefutable proof of a god's existence would somehow lead to people not believing that he exists. People don't suddenly stop believing in gravity because they see things fall frequently.

 

[Villain]

God won't just come down and prove to everyone he exists. If that really happened, then over time no one would believe he existed.

Do you have insight into how God thinks? How do you know what God will or won't do?

If He came down to prove that He existed then non-believers would be irrational to deny the facts.

 

[CSLACR]

Sam48 -
By far and away the worst attempt to answer it I've heard.
And that's a question I asked when I was 5 that can't be answered.

 

[Encyclopedia]

Maybe he was unfortunate with his words. Because what he said only makes sense in theotherwayaround-land.

 

[homeforsummer]

That is a bit of a daft explanation. A miracle 2000 years ago such as walking on water, turning water into wine or feeding 5000 with small amounts of bread and fish would still be pretty damn impressive now. Of course, I'm doubtful he did any of those things anyway and care to interpret them as exaggerations for literary effect, so take from that what you will...

I don't doubt though that doing those things today would do a lot more to reinforce belief than make people bored.

Though I do quite like the irony that for the more scientifically-inclined amongst us witnessing some miracles for real would make us believe in him, yet religious types who've believed in him with absolutely no proof would turn around and say "actually, I'm a bit bored of him now that he actually exists"

 

[Sam48]

Care to explain your logic behind this bit? To me it seems the exact opposite... more and more people are beginning to doubt his existence, due to the fact that there's no proof.

If God really came to earth right now, how many christians would actual believe? (Let alone atheists). Just look at Jesus. He was a loving and caring individual who came and preformed many miracles as he claimed he was the savior. Despite this, the decided to nail him to a cross because the Jews thought he wasn't the "Real" savior.

I don't see how there being constant, irrefutable proof of a god's existence would somehow lead to people not believing that he exists. People don't suddenly stop believing in gravity because they see things fall frequently.

Actually, gravity's a good example. We know gravity exists because it has been proven to exist. But if I proved that God exists, God is no longer something you "believe" in. God would become a fact, and therefore loose all meaning.

If He came down to prove that He existed then non-believers would be irrational to deny the facts.

Of course, but to how many people would facts be facts?

 

[Zoom!Zoom!]

Question: How come people 2000 years ago got to see Jesus walk the Earth and perform miracles (making it incredibly easy to see proof of God's existence) and everyone else is stuck expected to just "believe" in all of it?
How come "real" prophets stopped existing long before we had a chance to see any of their work?

I thought God said he was fair? It's not even close to fair to show some people absolute proof of yourself and then just arbitrarily stop one day now is it?

This question hasn't been properly answered in 23 years for me yet.

According to the Bible:
-Jesus pointed out those Pharisees who saw those miracles are more accountable and receive a worst judgment than those in Sodom and Gomorrah. You will only be judged by what you know and received.
- Since Jesus fulfilled the law and the High Priest role prophets are no longer needed.
-This is Age of the Gentiles. This is the age that God will let man do his best to create his own utopia with minimum interference. Man (both Jews and Gentiles) rejected the Messiah and His Kingdom so God will allow man's kingdom to run it's full course.

 

[TankAss95]

@Zoom!Zoom!:
You sir deserve a medal (Sach_F1 should get one too).

"Why is there something rather than nothing?" - Let's go back to that, shall we?
I would like to ask the atheist wether they think that the universe may have a meaning. It's no trick question - I'd just like to hear your opinions.

For matter/energy, with the laws of nature that comes with them, to come out of nothing without meaning seems strange to me. I think that the universe must have some sort of meaning behind it. I also ask why the universe bothers to continue to exist? Let's put aside the thoughts of any deities for now, just give your opinion as to wether there may be a reason behind it all.

Also I'd like to add that for the sake of this argument I'm assuming that the universe had a beginning.

 

[Exorcet]

If God really came to earth right now, how many christians would actual believe? (Let alone atheists). Just look at Jesus. He was a loving and caring individual who came and preformed many miracles as he claimed he was the savior. Despite this, the decided to nail him to a cross because the Jews thought he wasn't the "Real" savior.

Guys like this didn't seem to have trouble fooling people, and he was a fake

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uri_Geller

Actually, gravity's a good example. We know gravity exists because it has been proven to exist. But if I proved that God exists, God is no longer something you "believe" in. God would become a fact, and therefore loose all meaning.

Gravity has no meaning? I really don't think what you're saying makes any sense. God has no meaning now because he refuses to show himself in a no-way-to-deny-it manner.

Of course, but to how many people would facts be facts?

Any logical people.

@Zoom!Zoom!:
You sir deserve a medal (Sach_F1 should get one too).

"Why is there something rather than nothing?" - Let's go back to that, shall we?
I would like to ask the atheist wether they think that the universe may have a meaning. It's no trick question - I'd just like to hear your opinions.

For matter/energy, with the laws of nature that comes with them, to come out of nothing without meaning seems strange to me. I think that the universe must have some sort of meaning behind it. I also ask why the universe bothers to continue to exist? Let's put aside the thoughts of any deities for now, just give your opinion as to wether there may be a reason behind it all.

Also I'd like to add that for the sake of this argument I'm assuming that the universe had a beginning.

This question has been done to death. Why are you going back to it? You think that a universe needs meaning? Why? In all likelihood you think this because you were told via a convincing yet flawed argument, and since it was the first answer you came across, you stuck with it.

I guess I'll just repeat what I've said before. There is no meaning to anything. The laws of universe are what they are because reality works in such a way to create those laws, and at this point no one really knows why.

 

[homeforsummer]

If God really came to earth right now, how many christians would actual believe? (Let alone atheists).

Sorry, still doesn't make sense. I love the fact that Christians who blindly believe God exists with zero evidence, all of a sudden wouldn't accept if he actually showed himself.

You have your faith in God - that's fine, and something I understand. If you have that much hard-earned faith, why abandon it all of a sudden if God decides to show himself? Would his appearance not confirm your faith?

I would like to ask the atheist wether they think that the universe may have a meaning. It's no trick question - I'd just like to hear your opinions.

I also ask why the universe bothers to continue to exist?

Seriously TankAss, why are you coming back to this drivel again? You've already asked - several months ago - whether we think the universe has a meaning (the answer was a resounding "no"), and you already asked (several months ago - again) why the universe "bothers to continue to exist", as if it's in some almighty struggle to not just pop completely out of existence. Which is just as ridiculous now as when you asked it months ago.

Let me ask you a question: Why do you "bother to continue" to ask the same questions over and over if you don't bother to read the responses the first time around? Why ask for our opinions if you ignore them anyway?

You completely undermine the genuine discussion in this thread by completely selectively reading people's responses.

 

[Dennisch]

hfs, I bet you had the same face as your avatar when you wrote that post.