Why Question God's Existence

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When questioned in the scriptures as to what was the greatest of the Commandments, Jesus answered them saying; Love thy neighbor as thyself.

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""What we do in life echoes in eternity" Maximus"

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Oh....two minutes later and the computer is still working....miracle! LOL

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""What we do in life echoes in eternity" Maximus"

I do not believe that Jesus is the son of God any moreso than we all are. I believe Jesus was a wise man, educated well, and should be congradulated for combining his energy with the talents he learnt and had naturally.

Tracing back; I come to a point where I ask myself; why do people ask if there is a God...why do we question whether we or God exist? t it is probably just our brains reacting to information. We, as humans, actually have consiously realised we exist...animals know they exist but never actually realise it.

I am fairly sure that the instict of a human, above all else, is to reject pain. It is to prevent ourselves suffering. Second to this is the idea we try and accept pleasure. Now Christianity actually advocates love first. Christianity teaches hope: positive attributes to go beyond this.

However, if you think about it, what Christianity actually does is:

To fill the void of the unknown with the idea of God---why? for comfort maybe (just one answer)

However, its greatest acomplishment is in Jesus' words:

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'to love thy neighbour as thyself'..

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""No words""

heyjme1 you have said some very good statements but you have missed the essense of the Christian message

The Cross

""What we do in life echoes in eternity" Maximus"

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I do not believe that Jesus is the son of God any moreso than we all are

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""No words""

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What is factual reality?

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Until we can find what we were created for we will never fully know our purpose!

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The Bible has basically been rejected not because it has been tried and found wanting but rather it has be found difficult and left untried!!

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"The Greatest Enemy of Knowledge is Not Ignorance, It is the ILLUSION of Knowledge. Stephen Hawking"

Leftwood, have you actually read the Bible?

It rather seems you havent!

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Rejected are many claims within the bible as well as the source

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Debate is hindered by random unsupported statements.

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""What we do in life echoes in eternity" Maximus"
[  Edited by PeteSmith at   ]

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Which ones?

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Leftwood, have you actually read the Bible?

It rather seems you havent!

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Sound like something you would say?

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You may not admit this in this discussion but the reason you are in this chat room is because you are searching for a reason for your existance.

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"The Greatest Enemy of Knowledge is Not Ignorance, It is the ILLUSION of Knowledge. Stephen Hawking"

To the detractors... pointing out shortcomings and crytical analysis are not as difficult as coming up with a method of communicating the concepts behind moral codes that hold our society together.

Give some example of how you would like to see that done.

Story telling is our oldest tradition. Replace it with what? From culture to culture there are stories designed to stimulate, inform and define the conscience; that inner voice of self guidence.

Ethics are what they are, and how do you put a reason behind them?

"You are affected by 3 generations and you affect 3 generations, and every third generation a major change takes place in the family."

Morals and ethics are fine, calling the stories that convey them factual is not.

That would be lying which is unethical.

Is that clear enough?

The concepts behind moral codes are quite simple, its a means of promoting peaceful and safe, perhaps giving and loving environments and social interactions, there is no mystery here. Its a method of survival in a social setting.

Large social structure problems arise mainly when people take more than they need leaving others without creating imbalance.

Past that we seem doomed to suffer mental, emotional, and physical characteristic imbalances that fuel social tension, especially in overly vain and judgemental societies, some of which is just nature and instinct, some of which is promoted by selfish, greedy, and power hungry societies creating cycles that breed imbalance over generations which causes us to forget how it starts let alone how to fix it or be willing to change to do so.

"The Greatest Enemy of Knowledge is Not Ignorance, It is the ILLUSION of Knowledge. Stephen Hawking"

Leftwood, I am very sorry to hear that you have had such a negative experience of Christianity!

But to answer your question: My purpose?
To worship God and to be transformed into Christs likeness by following His plans and purposes for my life!

""What we do in life echoes in eternity" Maximus"

I do not believe leftwood had "such a negative experience of Christianity" I think leftwood's experience has powered him to overcome the falseness and corruption of the Christian faith. I think its made him stronger so that he does not need something/someone to fall back on when times get rough like most other Christians. I have come to the realization that people go to churches and do all their churchy things to have meaning to their lives. Why don't you go out and make your own meaning? You worship God and his plans...why? because you were told to or scared into (hell) following the Good Book. It has just made life easier to say oo God did this or God did that or God will do this or God will do that. DO IT YOURSELF. Make your own plan and path in life. The weak follow while the strong lead.

Leftwood said some of the stories in the bible that convey the moral messages are untrue, which is correct. a lot of the moral stories were as they say stories told by jesus. but a lot of the rest of it is supposed to be a history of the jews, and of jesus and his disciples. those bits are true at least to some extent. the jews did the totally believable bits that the bible tells us of, and there is more proof that jesus existed and was crucified, than that julius ceaser was ever a roman emporor, (and by evidence i mean documentation other than the bible).

the thing i have to most dispute is hyjme's comment about thinking jesus was a good man and a prophet, and nothing more. you can only accept one of two things about jesus, either he was the son of god as he claimed, or he was a loony/fraudster because his claims were false. if he was the son of god, then what he said was good and right, if not, then it was all lies, but all the morals set down seem to be good, dont they? so which would you think? not the most convincing arguement for the divinity of jesus, but something for you all to have a ponder over.

"So Schrodinger's Cat is not only neither dead nor alive, but might also be sexually aroused by elbows and peanut butter?"

Three answers:

1. We are all the son of God
2. Sometimes a little bit of evil is necessary for the greater good. We are all constrained by the reality in which we exist to some extent.
3. He is the son of God.

There is a fourth:

4. Jesus was bad.

""No words""

to me, God isnt a person, and to believe in God means to have faith, and i think thats the point, cuz faith alone a lot of times when ur not doing good gives u the energy to go on.