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GOD/JESUS/SATAN
Topic Started: Thu Nov 1, 2007 12:47 am (1,520 Views)
DeMaGoG
Level 23
TeaLaGe
May 6 2008, 12:15 AM
Hey, here's an argument.

If god says you should worship him or you will die, what about the people who worship other gods in religions?

What if their gods say, that if they don't worship them, they would die?

explain easier:

Person 1 worship god = heaven, Person 2 worship buddist = Hell
Person 2 worship buddist = Heaven, Person 1 Worship god = hell

So to sum it all up, you're gonna go to hell whether you like it or not because every almost every religion sends you to hell if you don't worship them and you cant worship all of them at the same time, or you will go to hell for that too..

so what do you do?

Only one religion is correct, that's where faith comes in. If you don't have faith, then you don't understand it, and you shouldn't criticize it.
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Relieve
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SoniC
Quote:
 
Only one religion is correct, that's where faith comes in. If you don't have faith, then you don't understand it, and you shouldn't criticize it.


Very true. Christianity is about having faith. There is no way to prove or disprove of Christianity. The only problem I have with religion is that it causes death to people.
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Sarge
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Hacker Hunter
Relieve
May 7 2008, 04:18 PM
Quote:
 
Only one religion is correct, that's where faith comes in. If you don't have faith, then you don't understand it, and you shouldn't criticize it.


Very true. Christianity is about having faith. There is no way to prove or disprove of Christianity. The only problem I have with religion is that it causes death to people.

Only one religion is correct.
Of course thats your religion, which means everyone else is wrong.
Its like playing Russian roulette with 5 bullets, just hope you get the right religion?
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FaZ-
Level 39
More like Russian Roulette with a 1000-chamber barrel that just keeps getting bigger. And you can't even be sure that one of the chambers is empty...

I'll live morally and not waste my time with religion. If a just and omniscient God does exist, he'll respect logic more than faith in something that has no evidence.
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DeMaGoG
Level 23
So I realized this today. Everyone has faith, because faith is believing in something. So even atheists and the like have faith and are therefore religious. Religion isn't having a belief in a god/afterlife, it's having faith in regards to something, and religion as we know it has faith in regards to god(s)/afterlife.

I think the only way one couldn't be religious is if the thought of something after death never crossed their mind. To have faith in something one must choose between having faith in it or not having faith in it (the latter is the same as saying they have faith that something isn't a certain way).

That is all just an observation on my part, I'm not using it as an arguement, though feel welcome to argue against it, you may bring up a good point and change my mind, especially since I've put almost no thought into it :P

Saying all of that though, I guess it's ok to criticize other people's faith haha... but not in a negative way. One should respect another person's faith and not dog on them by saying believing in such a thing is prepostorous based off of no evidence (that was just and example). Besides, if there is no evidence, the fact that there is no evidence can't be evidence to support either side (something more to life or nothing more to life).

I like rambling, but I'll stop here XD
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Geofari
Level 13
you dont have to respect others' faith. there are just somethings you cant live with and are not acceptable.
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FaZ-
Level 39
DeMaGoG
May 8 2008, 12:09 AM
So I realized this today. Everyone has faith, because faith is believing in something. So even atheists and the like have faith and are therefore religious. Religion isn't having a belief in a god/afterlife, it's having faith in regards to something, and religion as we know it has faith in regards to god(s)/afterlife.

Minus agnostics, yes. That's why I'll never call myself an atheist. In order to do so, I would have to have reasonably conclusive proof that God doesn't exist. While it's a strong possibility in my mind, it's by no means proven, and I'd be a hypocrite to have faith that there is no god.
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DeMaGoG
Level 23
Geofari
May 8 2008, 12:34 AM
you dont have to respect others' faith. there are just somethings you cant live with and are not acceptable.

I'm not saying you should respect their faith as in their religion, I'm saying you should respect their faith as in their choice to believe in something.

Faz could you explain agnostics for me? I could look it up, but I want to hear it from you. One of my friends is agnostic (or so she says) and she said it is when a person can't decide what to believe.
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FaZ-
Level 39
To me, it means that I live my life without religion. There are different forms of agnosticism, though. Generally, your friend is right, it's when a person looks objectively at the evidence supporting various gods, and decides that they don't feel any of the arguments hold weight. I feel that it's useless to pursue something that is unknowable, though some agnostics do believe that there is a god, and simply don't follow any organized religion. Some also feel strongly that if a god exists or existed, he no longer cares about this world and thus it's still useless to have faith.

This doesn't necessarily make me any more moral or immoral than someone who lives with religion, though prison records actually show that Atheists/Agnostics are much less likely to be jailed than Christians. That might just mean that we're smarter and harder to catch, though. =D
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Geofari
Level 13
FaZ-
May 8 2008, 08:55 PM
To me, it means that I live my life without religion. There are different forms of agnosticism, though. Generally, your friend is right, it's when a person looks objectively at the evidence supporting various gods, and decides that they don't feel any of the arguments hold weight. I feel that it's useless to pursue something that is unknowable, though some agnostics do believe that there is a god, and simply don't follow any organized religion. Some also feel strongly that if a god exists or existed, he no longer cares about this world and thus it's still useless to have faith.

that sounds a lot more like aethism and deism xD
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Am25
Level 0
im not religious or anything but for some reason everytime im in a dangerous sitatuation i always find myself asking god to protect me so ehh
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DeMaGoG
Level 23
FaZ-
May 8 2008, 08:55 PM
This doesn't necessarily make me any more moral or immoral than someone who lives with religion, though prison records actually show that Atheists/Agnostics are much less likely to be jailed than Christians. That might just mean that we're smarter and harder to catch, though. =D

What prison records?

Obviously religion has nothing to do with intelligence, but I'm pretty sure you were joking (it's hard to tell without hearing a person). But as for morality, that isn't affected by religion. Morals are a person's own ideas as to right and wrong. Religion tells a person what is right and wrong. Values are a mixture of the two. And ethics are just plain complicated :-p
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FaZ-
Level 39
DeMaGoG
May 9 2008, 12:45 AM
What prison records?

Obviously religion has nothing to do with intelligence, but I'm pretty sure you were joking (it's hard to tell without hearing a person). But as for morality, that isn't affected by religion. Morals are a person's own ideas as to right and wrong. Religion tells a person what is right and wrong. Values are a mixture of the two. And ethics are just plain complicated :-p

These ones: http://www.holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm
The data is disputed due to the fact that it is transcribed, rather than directly given. It does however show Atheists vastly underrepresented.


I'm writing a 5 page annotated bibliography that says the exact opposite of what you consider "obvious". Here are a couple of sources you'd probably find eye opening, most specifically the first one, though it's limited to only the United States.

http://sda.berkeley.edu:8080/quicktables/q...rtKey=gss04%3A1
(Sort by religious preference and highest degree earned.)

http://hypnosis.home.netcom.com/iq_vs_religiosity.htm
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DeMaGoG
Level 23
FaZ-
May 9 2008, 02:42 AM
These ones: http://www.holysmoke.org/icr-pri.htm
The data is disputed due to the fact that it is transcribed, rather than directly given. It does however show Atheists vastly underrepresented.


I'm writing a 5 page annotated bibliography that says the exact opposite of what you consider "obvious". Here are a couple of sources you'd probably find eye opening, most specifically the first one, though it's limited to only the United States.

http://sda.berkeley.edu:8080/quicktables/q...rtKey=gss04%3A1
(Sort by religious preference and highest degree earned.)

http://hypnosis.home.netcom.com/iq_vs_religiosity.htm

The first site: 86.1% of people that complete graduate school are religious? That doesn't seem to support what you are saying. The "other" section is low, but what does it mean by "other?" With the way the data is shown, how do we know the number of people in each religion? 61% of people that only went through high school are protestant, but 51% of people that got a graduate degree were protestant... those numbers just don't seem right. And this doesn't support intelligence, just shows percent of each level of schooling that was completed by each religion/non-religion.

The second site: The criteria of that are people who think religion is "very" important. How important is very important? I'm sure there are other criteria that could be compared to a country's IQ level... Some country's average IQ's were below where "retardation" is said to start (I think it's 75). That means more than half of the population are legally retarded. That makes no sense. I think a better cause of these lower IQ levels would be the education systems in those countries, and the economics. In many of those countries I'm sure most people drop out of school early to work. With this lack of education, of course they wouldn't do as well on an IQ test. If you could show the percent of people who drop out of school by grade level, or just the percent that complete high school, I'm sure you would see a similar corrolation.

Looks to me like you need more research.
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FaZ-
Level 39
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Faia, Michael A. 1976. “Secularization and scholarship among American professors.” Sociological Analysis 37.1: 63-73

This somewhat outdated article judges the achievements of college professors in their published works and their secularity on questions about religious participation. This data acquired demonstrates a distinctly positive correlation between these two ideas. The research claims that it is due to the largely skeptical and questioning mind of the more secular staff member that the levels of religiosity among these faculty members correlates positively with their achievements. The cynic will not easily accept traditional thoughts without seeking evidence independently. The research also seems to be advocating a separation of academics and religion as the best way to fulfill one’s scholarly prowess. This article seeks to provide reasoning for the apparent link between lack of religiosity and achievement.


Furman, Leola Dryud and Perry W. Benson and Edward R. Canda and Cordelia Grimwood. 2005. “A comparative international analysis of religion and spirituality in social work: A survey of UK and US social workers” Social Work Education 24.8: 813-839.

Leola Furman and her associates in the writing of this article chiefly describe the differences between United States, England, and Ireland in the ways in which they have reacted to the growth of secularism within their borders. They argue too that this secularist development has allowed the spread of these worldly views and empowered those who hold them. The writers point out that it has become far more difficult for a government to be significantly influenced politically. This work contrasts with others in that it looks directly into syllabi of social work education schools in order to draw its conclusions in addition to the use of polling methods of various individuals. It draws from the educational programs that graduates of many programs feel largely ignorant of non-religious views in both the US and UK.


Halman, Loek and Veerle Draulans. 2006. “How secular is Europe?” The British Journal of Sociology 57.2: 263-288.

In particular, one quote from this source stands out as being of paramount relation in answering the anticipated question of why education and secularism are  interconnected:
Education means increasing cognitive skills, developing a more critical attitude towards authority, and placing an increasing emphasis on personal autonomy and individual judgment, and, consequently, results in lower levels of religiosity.
The article as a whole inquires as to the growing secularity of various countries, specifically in Europe. The article owes this in part to growing globalization across the world. Because people are assailed with various opinions frequently in their everyday lives, it becomes much easier for one to question his/her beliefs objectively, and thus also to deem them unfitting.


Paul, Gregory S. 2005 “Cross-national correlations of quantifiable societal health with popular religiosity and secularism in the prosperous democracies: A first look.” Journal of Religion & Society 7.1: 1-17.

This article details comparisons of religiosity to other issues with data from various developed countries. In general, secular states have much less social dysfunction than states with high levels of religiosity. The United States in particular has comparatively extreme values in multiple areas. In particular, these areas include a low acceptance of human evolution and a relatively high absolute belief in a god. We also appear as an outlier from the regression line in areas where absolute belief in god is compared to things such as homicide rate, abortions, 15-19 year old pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, and more.  The statistics featured are diverse, but the majority of relations made in this article in the have clear correlations that can be seen in the graphs presented therein.


Pearson, Jennifer and Jennifer B. Barrett and Chandra Muller and Kenneth A. Frank. 2005. “Adolescent Religiosity and School Contexts.” Social Science Quarterly 88.4: 1024-1037.

This article goes in depth into the curriculums of schools in order to answer the question of whether or not these schools are capable of affecting levels of religiosity in their students. The conclusions are logical; students who felt that they identified well with the school took a good deal of bias away from it, whereas those who felt largely independent upon entering were mostly unaffected by the teachings of the school. Various schools provided a solid set of data from which to base conclusions. This data relates to the thesis in that it shows how one’s area of education can also very much affect one’s religiosity.



That better? Also, you need to learn how to interpret graphs. And if you think it doesn't take intelligence to earn a Doctorate degree, I'm not sure where to go.
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DeMaGoG
Level 23
Well, interpret it for me, 'cuz those things were pretty confusing (not to mention I'd been working outside all day, makes me mentally fatigued). And I'm really good at interpretting graphs by the way.

And I didn't say earning a doctorate degree doesn't take intelligence, it just doesn't seem like that data has anything to do with intelligence.

Also, you just reminded me of a question I had about intelligence, which I'll go start a new topic about now.
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FaZ-
Level 39
Interpretation: Smarter people are more likely to be atheists or agnostics.

If you're really good at interpreting graphs, I wouldn't have had to tell you that.
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DeMaGoG
Level 23
So I thought you've been saying atheists/agnostics are more likely to be smart. And no one is perfect... well there was this one guy, but we killed him.
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Lintendo
Level 5
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And no one is perfect... well there was this one guy, but we killed him.


its sad too.... but lol
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Geofari
Level 13
if he was perfect then he would be more than perfect in just his virtues yes?
did he blind people with his radiant teeth and lush wavy hair?
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