A non religious/religious thread

[Ianpbaker]

Hi All

Right before I start off I would like to say a few words, I am not a religious person and what I have written below are my views on things. Although I reference a few things, I have no intention of anoying people because of what i've posted.

Right then off we go.

A couple of years ago a friend of mine and I had a discussion on what everything is about and one of the things he said to me has stuck with me and the more and more I think about it, the more and more I believe this. In mostly all religions there are normally three main things: a heaven, a hell and some scripture that tells us how to lead our lives. The bible for instance, says that if we live our lives the way that it say's, we will end up in heaven and if we don't, we go to hell. now if you take away religion, you left with just your life and what you do with it and I believe that heaven and hell that is referenced is actually earth. For example, If every one in the entire life abided by the rules of decent living (like the bible and other holy books say) Then the world would be like utopia and in a way heaven. But on the other hand if every one lived there life "Sinning" then the earth would be a hellish place. If you take God and Devil, add an extra o to the first, and take away the d from the other, what do you get?

Religion has been a great and a disasterous thing at the same time. It has been Great, becuase it has brought unity between people but has also divided others. The problem is that because Different nations have evolved with different religions, there have been conflicts between religion. For example, take the conflicts in the middle east. If you take away religion from the equation, all you are left with is two set's of people fighting over a piece of ground. Up untill the 20th century, mostly all major wars were about religion.

This world needs unity between between people and in a way Religion has brought this but becuase of all the different religions, the conflicts have arisen just becuase two sets of people have had different belief's.

In the beginning of man all we were woried about was feeding and pro-creating, but when we started evolving into what we are now people started using religion as a way of explaing things. But now that we have better understandings of most things, I feel that religion doesn't come into things as much becuase sience has proved so many things now wich was once explained as acts of god.

To conclude I would say that everyone needs to believe in one thing, and that is to live a life where everyone get's along, but sadly I am also a realist as well and no full well that it is in our nature to be the way we are and in the end, i think we are just going to wipe ourselves off this planet.

Right that's enough for me. Please feel free to discuss anything you want with me and again if I've offended anyone, I do appolagise

Ian

[CyberSurfer]

I must say that I disagree with you, although I'm not offended, and I don't intend to start a flame war.

Although the bible tells us of rules for clean living, it also recognizes that, due to sin, it is impossible for any human being to follow these rules exactly. As a result of this, the only way by which a Human may enter the Kingdom of Heaven is by trusting in the Lord Jesus as his/her saviour. Christians (of which I am one) beleive that God sent his son (Jesus) to earth to die for our sins (the crucifixion). We beleive that this has forgiven our sins, and we are now able to enter Heaven when we die.

Now, this is not an excuse for us to run around and disobey all those rules. We endevour to lead our lives by these rules as far as possible, although no-one can follow them completely. We hope, by others following our example, to lead others to Christ so that their sins may also be forgiven.

As far as creation goes, I beleive totally in the story of creation told in the bible. I find it impossible to beleive that all the wonders around us were created by chance, and that all forms of life evelved from single cell organisms or whatever.

I also agree, due to the bible, that the end fo the world is coming pretty soon.

Unlike yourself, I am a religious person, but I don't want to get into a huge flame war if anything I have said may be inaccurate.

If I've confused you, then sorry! I'll be here until 4:15 if you have any questions.

[Ianpbaker]

I'm in in agreement with you about not starting a war, I was just seeing what view's people had on my theory that's all. I begrudge no one for believing what they do.

I wont go into the the things you said as what you say is true about the bible, as in that it is a guideline on how to live a life and that it can't be adheard to all of the time. what I will say is about the end of the world.

In the bible it say's that the anti-christ will come and we will face aramgeddon. I believe that some-one will emerge as evil, like's of which we have never seen, but that peron will be a normal human beeing and not the sun of the devil. You could quite easily say that some-one like Hitler was the anti-christ for everything he did, and I'm sure their will be other people in the future who do worst things than he.

Who knows, 10..20.. years down the road that something profound will happen that will change the way everyone thinks, what with things like quantum physics emereging and the likes. a hundred years ago if you told a physaisist that we would be talking to each other with out any wires or that there would be objects floating round the earth transmitting information, you would probably be in for a treat of gruel three times a day in the local assylum. And when I mean by changing the way - I mean to religion or against it.

Ian

[CyberSurfer]

I beleive that there will always be religion, but I also feel that the way we think will also be majorly changed in the near future....

I also believe that if I can't solve this bug in my program, I'll pull all my hair out!;)

[Ianpbaker]

yeah, I think religion will be around as well and that profound thing that happens, could be religious based and If something like that did happen then I would change my views. a question for you cyber.

I've started reading into quantum physics at the moment and the theory about there being an infinate number of paralel universes. where each time we make a deccision the universe split's into two. If for instance a 100 years down the line they prove this to be true, then how do you think religion will cope with this. I'm just wondering that's all

Ian