Re: God Thread, Pt. III

[rwo power]

I think people were sure god exists and knew that the concept of heaven and hell is true, most of them would go out of their way to get into heaven.

IMO it was more the other way around - the concept of heaven and hell was created by the people in power to have a means to frighten the poor people into accepting any hardship as there would be some paradisiac afterlife if they were meek and followed their superiors without complaint.

I mean - you just need to look into the clever setup:

1. if you are an obedient person and follow the rules that are set-uo, you go into some fantastic afterlife, especially if you live under the worst life circumstances.

2. There is some fantastic afterlife awaiting, but you are not allowed to commit suicide to get there earlier, as the people in power need your work power and the money they can tax you while you live as long as possible.

BTW, in a way this makes fanatical suicide bombers almost understandable. They are brainwashed into thinking that they are not actually committing suicide, but they have a faster access to this heavenly paradise as their acts are wanted by god and will be rewarded. As many of these live under bad life circumstances, it is possibly a welcome way to shorten the wait to the imagined better afterlife.

Moreover, the persons they kill don't really matter as the bad ones / unbelievers just would get their punishment by God earlier which is positive, while the innocent good ones don't really matter either as they would just get into heaven earlier.

The whole concept of divine rewards and punishments is extremely clever as

a) they don't cost the religious leaders anything and

b) they cannot be proven anyway as no one actually returns to give a report on the veracity, and

c) people who are taught to faithfully believe in some god have been indoctrinated rules to exactly likewise faithfully believe into the leaders of their religion. (And mind you, in the past the religious leaders and secular leaders mostly shared mutual interests or even were the same person.)

[The Messiah]

Look at the way she is putting it without any evidence or history record to back her remarks, she is not even looking at the history of religion and people who started it and died for its course. Were this people rich and powerful people, who had many poor subject under them. Look at the way she puts up everthing thing to suit only her purpose, as if to say religion is practice by only poor people and there are no rich people who practices religion. Also most religeous founder such as Moses for example were rich people who who later became poor as a result of pursuing an heavily goal. At least if it was about controlling the poor people Moses and pharoah would have reached an agreement in such a away that Moses would have not taken Isrealite out of the tyranny of Ramases and he stood for a just course him and his brother.

Then you have Jesus who was also very poor, Zacharia, John all this people were poor religious people, some of them stood against goverment of that time who killed and prosecuted religious people of that time poor or rich, drove them out of home and excu simply because they believed and this are the leaders rwo power with her unlimited hate towards religion is suggesting started religion so as to control poor people.


I am a religious person and I am not a poor person, neither is my dad and I know many rich pious religeous people. Religion does not stop you from qchieving your wordly goals, just like people like John who were poor we also have examples of very rich religious people, example being Solomon or Salahudeen, these people were rich people who believe in God almighty, served him and abide by the rules.


Now I understand you have people like Prussia federico Babarosa who of course used religion the wrong away, of course Europeans used religion as a device of controlling people and of course spreading lies, didn't we witness how they came to Africa with bible but suddenly started turning everyon into slaves, killing those who stood against them and throwing some in the ocean. Yes I understand you have people who currupted religion, were pope will sit somewhere in Europe and execute poor in Jerusalem promising them paradise.


I fully understand how European exploited religion to suit only their interest. Then regarding sucide bombing let's not pretend, when people say this they are refering to Muslims, Mohammed is the leader of Muslim and he never order anyone to commit succide, or kill innocent people. Clearly God tells us in the Quran that someone who kill a fellow Human being is comparable to somone who have killed the entire mankind. Succide bomber kill both women, children, Muslims, Christians etc how can Islam accept that? At least not the killings of children, women or fellow Muslims. This is very much laughable, Europeans and Americans try to make people believe through media that Muslims are terrorist and sucided when clearly that's not the case, we Muslims are also victims of sucide bombing, we hate it and have been crying out for such a long time that we are not the propertator, Qurqn didn't teach us that, neigther did Mohammed.


Origin of sucided bombing started with Hashashin, who have strong link with knight templar. You can't even really called that sucide bombing thoe guys were just assasins, who target many Muslims and non Muslims figures such as the sultan of bagdhad who they killed, then they threatened to kill salahudeen, so tell me hoz are these people fighting a just or a religious course, going back in history sucide bombinh has always been about politics rather religion. No wonder it became rampart during bush era, an excused to sack a country, destroy it and kill its residence, this is not the first time they have carried out all this astrocity, they also sacked Benin kingdom as far back as a century ago, breach its wall, executed chief ologbeshire, exilie king jaja of akpobo, burnt down the city, stole artifacts worth over 1.2billion dollars in Todays money and have them saved in British Museum, Cameroon have delibrately refused to return our artifacts, he says "we are not here to correct historical wrong" from slave trade thing now, this people have used religion as a weapon to suit their own interest, similqr to evolution.


I am happy I became a Muslim and finally started to understand my religon after all these propaganda and falsehood. Likewise many people who are becoming Muslims in America and all over the world, thanks to all this propagandas, people are started to know more about Islam and entering the religion in bulk. Fasted growing relgion in the world, they plot but God is the best of plotters.

[The Messiah]

Typing from my bbm, will edit when I get home.

[kiranr]

What i meant was if GOD made people aware of his/her existence and listed out the criteria that would get them to heaven or hell in the afterlife, then the world would be a far better place. It just seems rational that a perfect being would have designed the world this way rather than ask for people to have faith.

[The Messiah]

What i meant was if GOD made people aware of his/her existence and listed out the criteria that would get them to heaven or hell in the afterlife, then the world would be a far better place. It just seems rational that a perfect being would have designed the world this way rather than ask for people to have faith.

You can not just reach a conclusion that the world will be a better place, personally for me I believe in a supreme being because the evidence are everywhere, but I also understand everything is stages, I look at myself how I started of as a semens, then become an embryo I understand that at some point when I was an embryo its was impossible to see some every important aspect of life, say for example my mother ir father, nevertheless they were in existence and with time and due cousrse it became reality.


God is perfect, time, beauty, waves, the unseen, the seen and many thins we know and don't know are part of his creation. Everything has it's purpose, time for an example is very foundamental in making the world a perfect place, say for example if God is to do things as we human wish then what will be the essense of time, it's importance will be gone, it's similqr to the sqying, truth lost it4 meqning without lie.


There are many things in the universe equally as important as humans, so even then have to serve their own purpose, when the time is right, everything will become apparant but for now no one is forcing you to believe, you cqn do qs please

[McLewis]

How is God perfect when the very creatures it created are destroying not only each other, but this planet that it created for all of its children to co-exist on?

Free will? Sounds more like a divine cop out to me. Gives God a convenient means in which to wash its hands of any blame or guilt for what happens to its creations. That sounds eerily familiar to me.

There are 3 in my book who believe in religion: Those that want to, Those that have to, and Those that need to. What drives this compulsion? I ask myself this a lot because unlike most atheists, I'm not content to simply not believe in God. I want to know why I find myself incapable in believing in God when others so readily do. Some call it faith, others call it inherent mental weakness or deficiency. I really don't know what to call it, but what I do know is that I'm too much of a realist and a pragmatist to see what I see, read what I read and hear what I hear every day and then just think that there's some all-powerful deity somewhere that has the power to make it all better and yet refuses to out of some some sort of depraved indifference.

[kiranr]

I know you have your own personal beliefs and i have mine. But that does not mean we cannot debate various ideas.

Think about it. We study hard in school and university because we know we will get good grades by doing well in the exam. We work hard in our jobs because we know those paychecks, bonuses and promotions are waiting for us.

So why can't the concept of heaven and hell be as clear? If we know that heaven and hell exists and know what will get us there, won't most people do everything they can to fulfill the desire to go to heaven? Isn't this the better way than saying you will be rewarded for your faith when there is no real evidence of this being true?

[The Messiah]

To beging with God I'd perfect but we as creatures are not so perfect, reason why we do so many Bad this even though he had programmed inside us to be able to distinguish what wrong from what is right. Secondly it's not everyone that believe we are God chilren, not all things we consider bad are really that bad, take the movie Lion king for an example, were Simba explained the circu of life to Kovo, he said everything depends on each other for survival, I believe at this point in time this things are important for the betterment of the planet. Death is not necessarily a bad thing, although we hate, some people argue that death is very important in order for life to exist. We see this in the formation of babies in Their mothers womb, how many cells commits suicide, then get eaten up by other cells, so as to bring about a better goal.


The way I see it is that, death is not a bad thing, a lion that kills an antelope in the jungle did not necessarily commit a bad thing, reason being that its complete circle of life, species depends on one antoher. The manner in whic you take a life from someone or a lving creation is what can be considered bad, also our ability to tell that killing our fellow kind is wrong, also proves the perfection of God, about ability to disobey shows our inperfection.

[RealGunner]

I know you have your own personal beliefs and i have mine. But that does not mean we cannot debate various ideas.

Think about it. We study hard in school and university because we know we will get good grades by doing well in the exam. We work hard in our jobs because we know those paychecks, bonuses and promotions are waiting for us.

So why can't the concept of heaven and hell be as clear? If we know that heaven and hell exists and know what will get us there, won't most people do everything they can to fulfill the desire to go to heaven? Isn't this the better way than saying you will be rewarded for your faith when there is no real evidence of this being true?

Very good question!

What i can say is that when you think about it, the concept for going to heaven or hell is pretty much the same everywhere. The answer is good deeds. Do as little bad as possible. However it's not always like that. When you said that if people knew heaven and hell existed in terms of hardcore evidence, wouldn't they do even better. Well the answer i think is still no. Most religious people believe in Heaven and hell as a proper place, they know it exists but even then they are corrupt and evil. They take god for granted and think he will forgive them in the end and send them to heaven.

If you do believe in a god, any god as long as it's one. Then keep doing the good stuff. That's one of the million keys of going to Heaven

[The Messiah]

I know you have your own personal beliefs and i have mine. But that does not mean we cannot debate various ideas.

Think about it. We study hard in school and university because we know we will get good grades by doing well in the exam. We work hard in our jobs because we know those paychecks, bonuses and promotions are waiting for us.

So why can't the concept of heaven and hell be as clear? If we know that heaven and hell exists and know what will get us there, won't most people do everything they can to fulfill the desire to go to heaven? Isn't this the better way than saying you will be rewarded for your faith when there is no real evidence of this being true?

There are also no real evidence or should I say guarentee of you getting good pay cheque after university. I have heard of one or 2 people who lost their lives immediately after grdauting, so let's not come here and act like everyhing is certain.



I believe in Paradise and I believe in hell, I don't know how to explain it but I will use allegory. In the Quran there is a verse that states the moon returns like a old date palm tree, any reasonable person will know not to take the moon as palm tree, there are many verses in the Quran like this.


Personqlly for me, hell represent purnishement,retributions, Karma for those who commited mqny ill deeds, I don't suppose people like Adulf Hitler should go unpurnish likewise Bush, for all the people they killed.


Even by nature those who commit ill deed suffer some sort of retributions, you have some who get tormented by their ill deeds in this world and start seeking atonements by doing Good deed so as to get rest of mind, inner peace, clean conscience which represents Paradise.


We look at natural justice, if u put ur hand in the fire it will burn you, if you don't it wouldn't. God is the perfect and the best of all judges, those who commit ill deed will not go un purnished, when we die and move on to the next stage every sould will know what they have set for themselves, we can not excape death and it's a purnishment for evil people and a blessing for good people, there are many things that our brain are limited to understand, when we die everyone will .̮
Or not see.

[The Messiah]

Just to support what RG said, some people knowing full well that if they graduate from university with a first they are assure of a beTter job, nevertheless they are still unserious therefore graduating with 3rd, dropping out etc.

I call it natural justice, if you put your hand in fire it burnts you, all this are evidence of a supresme being, those who commit ill deed should look at this evidence and warning ahed.

[rwo power]

@Messiah

If you can't see the evidence in my statement from everything that happened from history to today, I really can't help you there. I was taught to draw logical conclusions from everything I see and hear, but of course faith allows a person to simply overlook a chain of evidence and simply take the things one believes in for granted no matter whether there is provable evidence or not. After all, the very core of belief is that hard evidence is unnecessary and in many cases even undesirable. The interesting thing is that you talk about "evidence" while everything you have is an ancient collection of texts that derived from an oral tradition and that were edited and translated many times by humans who usually had their own agendas, too.

The religious founders probably believed in their ideas, but they were nicely used as figureheads later on and as means to direct the masses more easily. That is why in totalitarian states there are very often two extremes:

1. declaring religion unwanted (see GDR or the Marxist doctrines or China or North Korea) which allows the politicians to set up their system in a way that they channel the people's religious feelings into a messianic political figure

2. Setting up the state as a through and through religious construct which also allows to lead people easily through their religious feelings and beliefs.

The advantage in manipulate the religious feelings of people is that those who are indoctrinated to follow a belief closely will thus be so occupied that they are trained away from thinking by their own which makes them more easily malleable and easier to manipulate. I mean, look at the case of the Mohammed caricatures - I bet most of the muslims that got riled up about them never even saw them, but because their religious leaders told them to consider this an affront and they should fight against that etc, there was an elegantly directed mass uprising that resulted in violence in many places.

Also the Christian crusades were a similar thing - I bet most of the medieval crusaders didn't even know what a muslim was but the secular leaders (who were closely connected to the church then) used the religious beliefs of the masses to collect an army to invade the muslim countries to get nice amounts of ransom for the big wigs.

Of course there can be rich people who actually believe, too, but the real targets are the poor masses as religion makes it easier to pacify and manipulate them and keep them away from trying to topple the people in charge.

As for the suicide bombers - well, you can say that neither Mohammed nor the Islam allows this - but it is fact that there are obviously people who use religious arguments to convince the fanatics it is a good thing to blow up themselves plus an adequate number of targets.

Do you really think an atheist who doesn't believe in some paradisiac afterlife but who believes for himself that there is only one life on this earth would actually blow himself and others up? If you think that there is only this one life you live and you have just this one attempt, then you will likely consider it much more precious than if you have some other chance in some heavenly afterlife. After all, then the life on this world is not so important in the first place as the really good stuff is supposed to come thereafter.

And btw if God was perfect, why did "he" create such an imperfect world?

[RealGunner]

What do you define as Imperfection

[The Messiah]

The Dude who masacre people during Batman movie lunching, wasn't that dude an athiest. I know many maniacs athiest who have taken the lives of innocent people.


The Manner in which you come to conclusion that religion was founded to control the POor is shocking

Answer me this, Jesus is the founder of Christianity largest religion in the world, Christians follow him.

Then you have Islam the second largest.


Are you suggesting that the government of that time used Mohammed and Jesus as figure headed? Do your research and put forward your evidence that what you speak is the truth.


Then I will bring you my evidence that it was the Europeans that manipulated religion for their own purpose so as to control their people, thereby leading to European Christians sacking Islamic states that have live door to door in peace with Christians and of course using it for slave trade as well.


When they invented better ideals to control people, such as industrialisation, medians, evolution, they threw religion inside the Garbage and started burning it with fire if I may add.


I understand religion was used to control masses, but this was done by the Europeans and a few more. I don't suppose Mohammed, Moses, Isa and John etc used religion to control Mases when they simply couldn't. This people were hunted and killed by the leader of that time, didn't Herodos wanted to kill Jesus, Didn't Abu Tallab wanted kill Mohammed, didn't Pharoah Wanted to kill Moses. Here we see
God saving his apostles from the people with power and Rwo Power is telling Us that it was the aposltes who invented religion to control the poor because they are rich or What? We all knew Jesus was a capenter and Mohammed an orphan.

This were poor people figthing against the rich and Rwo power with her emmerse athiest understanding is educating us about this, should we now abandone our understanding of the truth and follow propagandas of athiest?

[stevieg8]

You are aware that "Virgin Mary" is in fact an incorrect translation?

And by the way, you might look up vacuum energy and virtual particles if you throw around the First Law of Thermodynamics.

Yes I heard about this before, they meant young and it got translated into virgin, can you confirm this?

As a hebrew speaker, I can most certainly confirm this. The word in question is translated to "young woman," was translated into an ambiguous word (which meant either) in Greek, and subsequently mistranslated into Latin. It's actually considered quite humorous in the Orthodox Jewish community that such a major part of a religion is based on a misunderstanding, and we've been aware of it for well over a thousand years. In fact, the King James Bible is rejected as an inauthentic text by almost all Jewish communities because of its many inaccuracies and failure to properly translate the original Hebrew, and yet is still the main one used by many Christians.

[VivaStPauli]

It's actually considered quite humorous in the Orthodox Jewish community that such a major part of a religion is based on a misunderstanding, and we've been aware of it for well over a thousand years.

Oh, believe me, I consider this quite humorous as well.

And if such an important part of Christianity is basically a misunderstanding - what else might be bollocks? It would be even more hilarious, if it didn't cost millions of people their lives...

[stevieg8]

It's actually considered quite humorous in the Orthodox Jewish community that such a major part of a religion is based on a misunderstanding, and we've been aware of it for well over a thousand years.

Oh, believe me, I consider this quite humorous as well.

And if such an important part of Christianity is basically a misunderstanding - what else might be bollocks? It would be even more hilarious, if it didn't cost millions of people their lives...

Humans will always find reasons to kill each other, and I've seen first hand the incredible benefits religion can confer to people. Don't write it all off as terrible, or discount people's faith simply because of misunderstandings or contradictions - just know it's not for you.

[Casciavit]

The Dude who masacre people during Batman movie lunching, wasn't that dude an athiest. I know many maniacs athiest who have taken the lives of innocent people.


The Manner in which you come to conclusion that religion was founded to control the POor is shocking

Answer me this, Jesus is the founder of Christianity largest religion in the world, Christians follow him.

Then you have Islam the second largest.


Are you suggesting that the government of that time used Mohammed and Jesus as figure headed? Do your research and put forward your evidence that what you speak is the truth.


Then I will bring you my evidence that it was the Europeans that manipulated religion for their own purpose so as to control their people, thereby leading to European Christians sacking Islamic states that have live door to door in peace with Christians and of course using it for slave trade as well.


When they invented better ideals to control people, such as industrialisation, medians, evolution, they threw religion inside the Garbage and started burning it with fire if I may add.


I understand religion was used to control masses, but this was done by the Europeans and a few more. I don't suppose Mohammed, Moses, Isa and John etc used religion to control Mases when they simply couldn't. This people were hunted and killed by the leader of that time, didn't Herodos wanted to kill Jesus, Didn't Abu Tallab wanted kill Mohammed, didn't Pharoah Wanted to kill Moses. Here we see
God saving his apostles from the people with power and Rwo Power is telling Us that it was the aposltes who invented religion to control the poor because they are rich or What? We all knew Jesus was a capenter and Mohammed an orphan.

This were poor people figthing against the rich and Rwo power with her emmerse athiest understanding is educating us about this, should we now abandone our understanding of the truth and follow propagandas of athiest?

I think you are mistaking Abu Talib for Abu Jahl. Abu Talib was Muhammads uncle and he took care of Muhammad after the death of his mother. Abu Talib was known for supporting Muhammad on spreading the message of Islam even though he was never a Muslim. The Quraysh clan constantly told Abu Talib to tell Muhammad to keep quiet and to stop spreading the message of Islam.

Abu Jahl was the leader of the Quraysh clan in Mecca. I am presuming you are talking about him and his attempts to kill Muhammad. One whole Surah which is Surat Al-Masad was talking about the punishment him and his wife wills endure when they are in hell.

[zizzle]

You are aware that "Virgin Mary" is in fact an incorrect translation?

And by the way, you might look up vacuum energy and virtual particles if you throw around the First Law of Thermodynamics.

Yes I heard about this before, they meant young and it got translated into virgin, can you confirm this?

As a hebrew speaker, I can most certainly confirm this. The word in question is translated to "young woman," was translated into an ambiguous word (which meant either) in Greek, and subsequently mistranslated into Latin. It's actually considered quite humorous in the Orthodox Jewish community that such a major part of a religion is based on a misunderstanding, and we've been aware of it for well over a thousand years. In fact, the King James Bible is rejected as an inauthentic text by almost all Jewish communities because of its many inaccuracies and failure to properly translate the original Hebrew, and yet is still the main one used by many Christians.

but in Arabic "young woman" implies virgin...could it be the case in hebrew

[stevieg8]

How can I believe in evolution when no one has gone back in time to 5million years to make all the necessary observation.

How can you believe in creationism, when you didn't go back in time 6000 years to watch god do it?

Because I also do not believe that, I think a Christians have already pointed out that there is nowhere in the bible where it states that God created the world 6,000 years ago. Even if it does, it could be 6,000 years in angels reckoning.

The bible is not just an ordinary book that you can just take it's literal meaning, there are many mysteries, allegories, similitude, parables, proverbs etc. You have to study it to understand it, you can't not just simply read it and come here to debate.

You want somebody to come debate you at face level? Well, here we go. I spent 6 years in religious Jewish school, along with three more at a lower level; I was raised in a religious family, with religious teaching and upbringing, in a religious community, so have studied the Old Testament, the Talmud (Jewish oral law) and probably upwards of 30 Jewish commentators in depth. I have studied philosophy from the pre-Socratics, and have a focus within this study on religious theologians. As a result, I have read the works of Christian philosophers including Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes. I also traveled through Italy with a PhD. in Comparative Religions who has been a practicing Roman Catholic his entire life, with whom I read writings of Popes from 1000 years ago to John Paul II, as well as studied the New Testament and the founding myths of the Church. I have studied pieces of the Quran, although sadly not all of it, and have read commentators including al-Ghazali, al-Farabi, Averroes, and others. I am also fluent in Hebrew and have studied the Old Testament, at least, in it's original text, and can make my way through Aramaic with difficulty.

For full disclosure, while I would consider myself a theist, I am not practicing in any way, nor would I ever attempt to debate an athiest. This is because it is not possible to prove God; in fact, St. Thomas Aquinas argued that it would be heresy to attempt to do so, as God by his nature exists outside of the human comprehension. Trying to bring God to our level is a form of idol worship, because it gives God - an unknowable entity - qualities that we understand. He claims that the only acceptable argument is the argument from first cause, which you cited earlier (something must have created the universe to begin with), but that one too has been disproven since his time by the new understanding we have of space-time. If you want to learn more on this topic, you should read up on quantum physics (also check out Immanuel Kant, who does a great job responding to Descartes' proofs of God; so great a job, in fact, that Descartes - a seminal philosopher - is considered a joke at this point) and the 4th dimension. If you can't wrap your head around these concepts, don't worry about it - they're tough. But don't be confused when academics don't think your infallible five-year-old argument is that convincing.

Islam (which I have been given the impression is your religion) goes even farther than Aquinas - describing God in anything but negative terms is an incredible violation. You can only describe God by what He is not - anything else purports to know God's essence, something considered incredibly problematic. Ironically, the best enumeration of this view I've seen was by Maimonides, a Jew, but he spent much of his life in Arabic North Africa, and is actually cited by the Islamic community as one of their great scholars - there are major questions as to his true religious beliefs. I would suggest you check out the aptly titled "Guide of the Perplexed" for a better understanding of this.

The bottom line is that if you want to have faith in God, if you want to take your scripture as fact - go for it; I've seen it work wonders on the psyche of numerous people close to me, who I love very much, and would never begrudge them to it. Furthermore, religion has been the source of many of the greatest thinkers the world has ever seen, from the pre-Socratics commenting on Hesiod to the modern Catholic Church, which still churns out philosophical treatises and considers morality at a level most people are unaware of (to all the secularists in this thread, did you know the Catholic Church supports the theory of evolution?). Religion is also directly responsible for many of the scientific discoveries through history, contrary to popular belief, and was the leading force behind the earliest hospitals (in Ancient Rome) and the entire existence of the university system (more recently, in what we ironically refer to as the Dark Ages).

But don't ever think you will convince someone. You simply don't have the proof on your side. Faith is important and helpful and healing BECAUSE it doesn't have evidence (another argument of Aquinas's, actually); it is something you accept onto yourself without proof, because you don't need it. I have a hard time accepting that, and it makes me all the more impressed by those who can do it. But those of us who like to dwell in verifiable absolutes - or are attempting to seek them - will never take your belief as proof.

[stevieg8]

You are aware that "Virgin Mary" is in fact an incorrect translation?

And by the way, you might look up vacuum energy and virtual particles if you throw around the First Law of Thermodynamics.

Yes I heard about this before, they meant young and it got translated into virgin, can you confirm this?

As a hebrew speaker, I can most certainly confirm this. The word in question is translated to "young woman," was translated into an ambiguous word (which meant either) in Greek, and subsequently mistranslated into Latin. It's actually considered quite humorous in the Orthodox Jewish community that such a major part of a religion is based on a misunderstanding, and we've been aware of it for well over a thousand years. In fact, the King James Bible is rejected as an inauthentic text by almost all Jewish communities because of its many inaccuracies and failure to properly translate the original Hebrew, and yet is still the main one used by many Christians.

but in Arabic "young woman" implies virgin...could it be the case in hebrew

It doesn't, there's a separate word entirely. In many cases Arabic and Hebrew overlap, but this is not one of them.

[RealGunner]

How can I believe in evolution when no one has gone back in time to 5million years to make all the necessary observation.

How can you believe in creationism, when you didn't go back in time 6000 years to watch god do it?

Because I also do not believe that, I think a Christians have already pointed out that there is nowhere in the bible where it states that God created the world 6,000 years ago. Even if it does, it could be 6,000 years in angels reckoning.

The bible is not just an ordinary book that you can just take it's literal meaning, there are many mysteries, allegories, similitude, parables, proverbs etc. You have to study it to understand it, you can't not just simply read it and come here to debate.

You want somebody to come debate you at face level? Well, here we go. I spent 6 years in religious Jewish school, along with three more at a lower level; I was raised in a religious family, with religious teaching and upbringing, in a religious community, so have studied the Old Testament, the Talmud (Jewish oral law) and probably upwards of 30 Jewish commentators in depth. I have studied philosophy from the pre-Socratics, and have a focus within this study on religious theologians. As a result, I have read the works of Christian philosophers including Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Descartes. I also traveled through Italy with a PhD. in Comparative Religions who has been a practicing Roman Catholic his entire life, with whom I read writings of Popes from 1000 years ago to John Paul II, as well as studied the New Testament and the founding myths of the Church. I have studied pieces of the Quran, although sadly not all of it, and have read commentators including al-Ghazali, al-Farabi, Averroes, and others. I am also fluent in Hebrew and have studied the Old Testament, at least, in it's original text, and can make my way through Aramaic with difficulty.

For full disclosure, while I would consider myself a theist, I am not practicing in any way, nor would I ever attempt to debate an athiest. This is because it is not possible to prove God; in fact, St. Thomas Aquinas argued that it would be heresy to attempt to do so, as God by his nature exists outside of the human comprehension. Trying to bring God to our level is a form of idol worship, because it gives God - an unknowable entity - qualities that we understand. He claims that the only acceptable argument is the argument from first cause, which you cited earlier (something must have created the universe to begin with), but that one too has been disproven since his time by the new understanding we have of space-time. If you want to learn more on this topic, you should read up on quantum physics (also check out Immanuel Kant, who does a great job responding to Descartes' proofs of God; so great a job, in fact, that Descartes - a seminal philosopher - is considered a joke at this point) and the 4th dimension. If you can't wrap your head around these concepts, don't worry about it - they're tough. But don't be confused when academics don't think your infallible five-year-old argument is that convincing.

Islam (which I have been given the impression is your religion) goes even farther than Aquinas - describing God in anything but negative terms is an incredible violation. You can only describe God by what He is not - anything else purports to know God's essence, something considered incredibly problematic. Ironically, the best enumeration of this view I've seen was by Maimonides, a Jew, but he spent much of his life in Arabic North Africa, and is actually cited by the Islamic community as one of their great scholars - there are major questions as to his true religious beliefs. I would suggest you check out the aptly titled "Guide of the Perplexed" for a better understanding of this.

The bottom line is that if you want to have faith in God, if you want to take your scripture as fact - go for it; I've seen it work wonders on the psyche of numerous people close to me, who I love very much, and would never begrudge them to it. Furthermore, religion has been the source of many of the greatest thinkers the world has ever seen, from the pre-Socratics commenting on Hesiod to the modern Catholic Church, which still churns out philosophical treatises and considers morality at a level most people are unaware of (to all the secularists in this thread, did you know the Catholic Church supports the theory of evolution?). Religion is also directly responsible for many of the scientific discoveries through history, contrary to popular belief, and was the leading force behind the earliest hospitals (in Ancient Rome) and the entire existence of the university system (more recently, in what we ironically refer to as the Dark Ages).

But don't ever think you will convince someone. You simply don't have the proof on your side. Faith is important and helpful and healing BECAUSE it doesn't have evidence (another argument of Aquinas's, actually); it is something you accept onto yourself without proof, because you don't need it. I have a hard time accepting that, and it makes me all the more impressed by those who can do it. But those of us who like to dwell in verifiable absolutes - or are attempting to seek them - will never take your belief as proof.

Absolute Gold

+1

[RealGunner]

"Guide of the Perplexed"

Written by Moshe ben Maimon right ?

As a hebrew speaker, I can most certainly confirm this. The word in question is translated to "young woman," was translated into an ambiguous word (which meant either) in Greek, and subsequently mistranslated into Latin. It's actually considered quite humorous in the Orthodox Jewish community that such a major part of a religion is based on a misunderstanding, and we've been aware of it for well over a thousand years. In fact, the King James Bible is rejected as an inauthentic text by almost all Jewish communities because of its many inaccuracies and failure to properly translate the original Hebrew, and yet is still the main one used by many Christians

And they give shit to Muslims when we say that..

[stevieg8]

"Guide of the Perplexed"

Written by Moshe ben Maimon right ?

Yup, the RaMBaM (Rav Moshe Ben Maimon) in Hebrew or Maimonides as the Anglicanized version of his name. Great Jewish/Arabic/possibly Muslim/classicist thinker. He was a little all over the place.

[RealGunner]

Yea i read it back few years ago, and then some of the chapters few months ago. It spurred me to find and read the Authentic Book of Ezekiel (although it's extinct now )

[stevieg8]

Yea i read it back few years ago, and then some of the chapters few months ago. It spurred me to find and read the Authentic Book of Ezekiel (although it's extinct now )

I must not have read that part (the Guide is like 600 pages long...). What's the Authentic Book of Ezekiel?

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