TaekOne

what kinds of questions do you guys have about christianity? i dont want this to turn into a christian-hate session or even flaming on any other faith/religion. its more of a 'survey' type of thing. just curious.

e3NiNe

The idea of "faith" exists when you believe in something that can't be proven. Due to the way my mind thinks, I have a hard time accepting things that can't be explained.

Although I am Catholic, I do hope one of these days I do have the heart to "find" God ... but I can't seem to buy in today (5/1/2006).

It's not more of a question towards the specifics of the religion ... it's more of a question to those who believe ... how do you do it? why do you do it?

TaekOne

i wasnt sure if those last two questions were rhetorical or if you were really asking me (or anyone else) :hs:

e3NiNe

Oh, it's a legit question to all.

How do you believe in something you can't prove?
Why do you believe in the faith you belong to?

(these questions aren't going to be debated ... I'm honestly trying to find an understanding for myself)

Tark

beacuse you cant prove that it doesnt exist. think of it this way... do you beleive in extraterestrial beings?
yes: it's not proven that they do exist
no: not provent hey dont.

kind of dumbming the faith but you probably understand what i mean.
for me having the faith is not necessarily believe in a set religion but beleiving in a god...

TaekOne

i guess it depends on someone's definition of 'proof'. one thing ive realized is that theres this huge dichotomy in our thinking, or at least for the people in Western countries. by that i mean most people agree that science and matters of faith are on totally opposite ends of a spectrum. then we tend to rely more on 'scientific' explanations as criteria to prove or disprove stuff.

but this perspective is flawed. science cant explain things such as trust, love, and basically all the cooler, more important things in life. at least thats my take.

if i were to seek something physically tangible to validate the 'truth' of my faith, then i think id be stuck in a slight rut. at the same time, having placed my trust in this guy jesus (yeah, so this is my spiritual orientation if not known by now ) has given me tangible changes in my life.

w/ 2 people that are in love, you cant ask really ask them 'can you prove that you two really love each other?'. i mean you can check out the engagement/marriage rings, the stuff they do together, but then again there are a lot of people who do/have those things, yet miss the point and arent in love at all.

for me, trusting, reading/learning, and acting out on the things that i read and hear about christ (not about christianity per se) has done much to change me, and that change is evidence enough for me.

how do i know its not some self-fulfilling prophecy instead? trust me, having a good background in sociology and psych in addition to being pretty introspective, i know theres no way that out of the simple "goodness of my heart" would i be able to do even half the things that i do/say/think now. and besides all the 'qualitative' aspects of my faith, there are a whole slew of scientific/historical pieces of 'evidence' that are there that supports it.

at the same time, i am wary of being naive and believing everything i hear/see.



that was long. i hope that made sense.

Grifter

http://www.valleyskeptic.com/george.htm

aux

lol george carlin is the man.

MellowGold

Taek, you sound like an intelligent man (or women?) and it has been a long time since I've had a good, hard debate about religion, so I believe I will enjoy this.

To begin:

Emotions are tangible. They consist of chemicals released into your brain. Happiness, anger, depression, all can be shown to be workings of the brain. Drugs and alcohol artifically manipulate these chemicals, causing sensations of extreme happiness (high) followed by an extreme reversal (the 'coming down').

Love? I'm going to assume you have had your own experiances with love. As such, you should know that love is usually an attempt at filling a 'missing' part of yourself. Beyond that, 'love' is usually feelings of trust, companionship, and friendship all bunched up in one. It is a natural response to human loneliness. I do not deny the existence of love. In fact, love is one of the greatest feelings in the world. It is not, however, a 'mystical' feeling without any reasonable backing behind it.

Some people need religion. Just as love, it fills a 'missing' part of them. However, as in love, it is easy to become too comfortable with your faith. In that case, people start to become blind and illogical. Have you been in a relationship where, in the back of your mind you KNOW that the relationship is not working, but you continue it anyway for the sake of it being comfortable?

And my favorate part...

What scientific proof do you have that afferms your faith?

Duff Man

I'm a confirmed catholic. I went to one of the most prestigious art institutes in the nation and they have a highly reputable liberal arts division (http://www.miad.edu). I took a lot of courses on Western Philosophies and religion. With in time, I took traditional and modern philosophies and studied my own belief on the existence of life. After carefully analyzing the whole smorgesbourge of information that was injected into my brain, I realized that there are still unanswered questions and those questions can be answered through science.

Since then, I've choosen the path of secular humanism. I except all religions in a non-fundamentalist fashion (with the exception of mormons and cientology - I will openly discuss the stupidity and lack of any logic or rationality with those particular sectors of religion)

I have grown to be very anti-fundamentalist. I admire different faiths, but I also condemn those that speak about there religions as superior and everyone else is wrong. This is a fundamentalist way of thinking. This is fascism and is no different then the fascist beliefs of Adolf Hitler, Tom Delay, Mohammad Khatami, George W Bush, Richard Cheny, Ronald Reagan, Saddam Hussein, Moshe Katsav...ect...