But the thing that Christianity has is hope of a better life after this hour or trial is over.

Christianity always grows during times of persecution. Ironically, that is what is happening now. The most rapid growth is near the equator and southern hemisphere.

This country is spoiled. The liberalse want to do whatever they want, but are often very intollerant of anyone or idea that would stop them from doing whatever they want.

Ravi Zacharias told this story once about moral authority. A young man who not happy with being told that there was moral responsibly in this world said that he didn't accept this. He believed in his own rules and reality. So, Ravi says, then if I met you on the street and pulled out a gun and shot you dead then that would be alright? The young man protested that was not right and he would not have that right to kill him. Then Ravi says, well then you can not have it both ways, either there is a moral law created by God that we instinctly follow or we both can live in anarchy and I kill you if I want.

I always believed in Paganism, you know Greek/Roman(there the same for the most part) Norse(Viking for the non-smart) and to a lesser extent Egyptian and Gallic mythology.. I mean they seem'd more human, look at Zues he can't help sleeping with hot chicks.. Also the threat of the Gods destroying you cause you didn't let someone into your house is always a good belief, the fact that the Norse gods were Mortal (except Balder) really makes you respect them also.

Besides, look at all the Myths and Stories about mythology trying to explain everything... Does Christianity/Jewish has that much literacher?(sp?)

Quality, not quantity.

Evidence, not fantasy.

Seek and ye shall find, you know.
And if you seek hard enough, and diligently enough, for long enough, you will find.


I did, which is why I am a Christian.

christianity is almost instantly thought of by "non-believers" as narrow minded junk where God sends u to hell if u dont beleive in him and that u hav to devote ur entire LIFE to worshiping him.....................well thats the way it was 1900 years ago.....

god doesnt just want u to believe in him, he wants u to love him, he is not some oppresing god that forces u to worship him,(the point is that he doesnt force u, he gives u a choice) and if u sin (and it doesnt matr who u are, we all do) u just sincerely ask for forgiveness and he forgives u. if u had a line, on one end was hate, on the other end was love, god is 100% on the love side. he is incapable of hate, he sacrificed his only son to save humanity (by the way ther is overwhelming physical and historical evidence that happended so dont try to prove it wrong in a couple of sentences)..........how can a being that does something like that be capable of such a horrible thing as hate.

now the issue of if u dont beleive in him, u go to hell, well ive said it be4, all u must do is ask for forgiveness, that is one of the greatest things about god, he ALWAYS forgives.........now u cant just ask for it in a pesemistic way, u have to be sincere about it, now im not gona tell wut "ramifications", (as i would technicaly pu it for u hard headed ppl out ther), god has as to sending ppl to hell or heaven, because i honestly dont know, but i do know that a person that in their heart, they truely and soulfuly love him, that go to heaven

You know, I really hate the shortcuts to spelling properly.

If you want your point to be made, spell it properly - if nothing else, so to show your audience that you are trying to make an intellectual response.

Lazyness in writing a respose is not acceptable.
At least, take enough time to do it correctly.

That being said...

I agree with you, to some(most) degree(s).

However...
God is capable of hate. He hates sin, after all. And there is a specific hate, mentioned in Revelation - look it up.

God will not always forgive, there is the unforgivable sin, after all.

We should have a tournament -- Atheists vs. Devout.

Best average score wins.

If the atheists win, all the religios have to deny the existence of god, and if the religios win, well, we atheists will, err, say the Lord's Prayer aloud or something.

Finally, someone that's starting to look like they have at least one foot on the ground, still. Ok, I'll bite the apple (@earthfaze  even though I know I'm gonna regret it)

Maybe what atheists are saying to all the supposedly devout religious freeks is (and don't forget I have the power of telepathy, so pretending doesn't work with me, Spanky) - you are not God, and we know it. We prefer to seek the truth, no matter what the cost, in spite of all your carefully laid out fantasies and (ahem) see-through plans for world domination, which you childishly engage in just because you are scared shi*less of dying or going hungry. We have more courage and willingness to do what God really wants than you do, and you just can't stand it.

Maybe. But then, we all do what we can.
(@ghostwes - How'd I score? hm? hm? Did I score?)
Meant in the most non-confrontatioanl way, everyone. After all, if we're gonna forget about God and go screaming off into insanity, we might as well be civil about it.   

What gives and one religion precedence over another? What makes Christianity the right religion, and all the others wrong? There is nothing special about it. It's just one of many.

Personnaly, I don't believe in "faith". As far as I can tell, it means something similar to "guess", and guessing in the realms of divinity is not a smart thing to do. Trying to understand the nature of God or the afterlife is guessing, and thus "faith" because nobody knows. So, in a sense, much of christianity is guessing, thus faith, because they don't know if they are right or wrong. A leap of faith. Well, that is my logic anyways...

But, according to what people have been saying in this thread, well hot potatoes, I saved! According to them, all you have to do is accept God and believe in God and you're good to go. And come to think of it, so are all the jews and muslims, because, well, what do you know! They believe in god too! And yet, the same people whose logic permits the other religions, deny them, just because they aren't christian. A flaw, to say the least.

I don't really care though. I think I should try to live life to it's fullest and be as happy as possible. Death is not a fear of mine. If I go to hell, I go to hell and I deserved it. It was my fault I screwed up, nobody elses, so I should be the one to blame. Besides, after a few million years of being burned, stabbed, drowned, or whatever you christians think happens in hell, I think I might get used to it. Pain would be a bit irrelevent at that point. Besides, if you do the math, heaven is actually hotter than hell, so I wouldn't have to worry about the heat too much.

Really though, none of it matters to me. Have fun with your endless argument. You will come to no conclusion, I can tell you that.

I just can't read it anymore, it hurts my brain.

earthfaze I intend to answer all of the questions you asked, even if I'm not an expert. For now though only this because I'm pressed for time these days:



To answer this I'll point you to Cuca's On Peace of Faith (De pace fidei). It is an excellent read and although not light reading I think you will enjoy it. I quote:

"It will, however, be very difficult to achieve agreement from all sides in respect to the triune God. That is, it will appear to all that the trinity cannot be conceived without three gods. If there is a trinity in the divinity, so there will also be plurality in the deity. However, it was previously said—and in fact, it is necessarily so—that there is only one absolute deity. Therefore, there is no plurality in the absolute deity, but rather in the participating, who are not God in the absolute, but rather gods through participation.
...
However, there cannot be several eternals. Consequently, in the one eternity is found unity, equality of unity, and the union of unity and equality, or connection. Thus, the most simple origin of the universe is triune, since in the origin the originated must be enfolded. Everything originated, however, signifies that it is thus enfolded in its origin, and in everything originated a threefold distinction of this kind can be found in the unity of the essence. And for this reason, the simplest origin of everything will be three and one.
...
Some name unity Father, equality Son and connection the Holy Spirit, since those designations, even though they are not proper, nevertheless suitably designate the Trinity. For the Son is from the Father, and Love or the Spirit is from unity and equality of the Son. That is, the nature of the Father passes over in the Son into equality. Therefore, love and connection arise out of unity and equality.

And if simpler designations could be found, they were more suitable, as are, for example, unity, iddity, and identity. These designations seem to unfold the most fecund simplicity of essence better."

[the Latin iditas is derived from the demonstrative pronoun id, meaning it or that, and the suffix itas, meaning a state or condition. It could therefore also be translated as itness.]

It's sections VII to IX. I only quoted part since it's a long text. The full text can be found at http://www.schillerinstitute.org/transl/cusa_p_of_f.html

I hope you find it useful. I think it also contains some answers of your other questions.

mm I think this is a bit one sided! You Atheists get the final victory, but all the poor christians get is a Lord's Prayer! Funny!

why do you read them?

Besides the irony of me answering this question, I don't read them. I just pop in sometimes to see if anyone replies to what I said. Have you seen that "How can we all be athiests" thread? It's HUGE! It's about to go to 300 posts. A damn shame considering that it has NOTHING to do with galciv2 or even games in general!!!!

Yea yea I ranted I know. I suppose I'm just jealous because the religous, off-topic threads get WAaay more posts than the threads that are ON-TOPPIC....it should be the other way around.

Foremost, I always see the same false dichotomy: One must accept science OR faith. This is quite simply ludicrous. I always see people who say something like "I was a Christian, but then I realized that science made sense, so now I'm an athiest", and then they go on to defend with this "Before we had the knowledge we have now, people used to say 'God makes things fall down', but now, through science, we know that it is gravity that makes things fall, so God doesn't exist." This is dumb, because the EXISTENCE of God was never in question. And of course, there are also the people who simply ignore plain FACT because it isn't in some thousand year-old collection of paper, which is also just dumb.
To elaborate, science CANNOT prove or disprove the existence of a supernatural force or being. We clearly understand that science operates on physical relativity, that is, we measure one physical thing by use of some other physical thing and then apply it. God, by definition, is physical. There is simply no way to apply scientific principles to him.
Now, with this in mind, many people will say "prove to me that God exists", and, when others can't produce evidence (because it's physically impossible), they will say that something that can't be proven is the same that something that doesn't exist, and often these others (the "faithful") will say "then DISPROVE God's existence", which athiests, recognizing the impossibility (I hope), will dodge this saying "the burden of proof lies on those who wish to prove it".
You know, there is a name for this attitude...

IGNORANCE

If YOU want to find the truth, YOU have to find it, no matter your initial hypothesis.

Anyways, in a more constructive light, I put forth this query, to both athiest and believer alike. WHY, not HOW, would a God/gods exist? There is no need to look at any book, be it holy writ or physical manual, just think about why God would exist, in your mind. What are his qualities? What is his role? Does he set some moral code? I think if we post our thoughts on this, this might help us clear any confusion.

All of the other points argue either about the nature of heaven, sin, etc., and will be resolved (hopefully) with this exercise, or they are about how Christians are power-mongerers and athiests are just modern Jihadists against any form of faith. Just shut up with the name calling. History is filled with people who used faith AND people who used science to fuel their own covert agendas, don't become them yourselves.

I have a better one. Unity=Beingness=Singular=1 Equality=Energy=Polarity=Linear=2 Connectiveness=Form=Pattern/Wave=3
and God=Unknown=Unmanifest=Cyclic=0 Of course I could be wrong and so could Cuca.

The main factor in spiritual progress is the quality of your own heart.First of all you have to recognize a need for God,then your desire which helps manifest anything else you bring into your life will come.So you are not neutral in this process.

Then you make spiritual progress in spite of your religion not because of it.The major religions can either be a way to God or a dead husk of dead ritual.

And because a lot of God's laws are impersonal,meaning they are no respector of persons,making them operate within everybody equally,you can make spiritual progress without belonging to an outer religion.An atheist can make progress as well as God's existence is independent of whether someone bieleives in him or not.The laws will operate automatically.

But it requires that you become uncomfortable with where you are at the present moment.
If we were once one with God it is hard to remember what that was like in comparison to being seperate from him.It is the matter of a lost vision of what we were before.
Having only been fed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and not knowing anything else you would not know there was lobster tail around the corner restaurant.you would not know what you are missing.

On the contrary, my friend, the devout would have a god on their side! Surely, that gives them an advantage over us, no? How could they possibly lose?

Hey, no fair! If Christians win then everyone goes to heaven, but if the athiests win then,,,, oh dear!

ever herd the saying.... "never put all your eggs in one basket".



Why is that? I mean if somone asks "how do you auto launch ships" it is simple to answer. But if somone asks "is there a God" well it is a tad more complicated don't you think?

Hmm I'd say if you want to be respectful to them that you d at least offer something that you d take if you were them. I do not think you would take such an offer if you were in their shoes.

I think it should read some people get to go to heaven! Us pagans don t have to do anthing in this drill!

Both sides here are putting their eggs in one basket! To paraphrase Mel Brooks in History of the World part I, " We pagans are rich we got gods. We got ALOT of gods! The only the we don t got a god for is...." mm I think I should stop there I don t want to give Kyro a heart attack!   

Perhaps.....but thats a noob question. Imagine if every noob started a god thread. Galciv2.com would be renamed to Galciv2.god!

Much easier to just activate the built-in commo gear already in place...it's even faster than thought!

i'm a major part of the atheist discussion. i'm not sure it's a bad thing that the discussions on religion, politics and drinking get so many replies. it's still the GalCiv community participating in the discussion, and it's better that the replies stay in a few threads rather than proliferating into as many threads as game topics have. many threads on GC2 tend to be short lived because they're simple Q&A, or because the topic because out of date. but i'm sure if you took the total number of on-topic threads and responses against that of off-topic ones, it wouldn't seem like a 'problem.'

personally, when i'm at work, i pay attention to new game threads as well as existing off-topic discussions. if i have anything to offer to the game topic threads, i do. but i also pay attention to the off topic threads because they interest me. i'm still viewing GC2 advertising while i do that, and i'm still paying attention to on-topic threads as well, and still encountering SD's polls and announcements. i don't think there's anything wrong with people who've a common interest, GC2, also talking about other things. a lot of us spend the day at work, and this is a nice way to perforate our days. if stardock has a problem with it, i'd hope they'd step in and say something.

I've had a change of heart.
Belief is very important to so many people that it can't be belittled.
if i did so, then i will try to apologise.
It can never be my place to demean or discourage anything that has true intrinsic value.

I think that spirituality is necessary to some, and is also a basic human right.

I am not conceding that religion has any rights not to be abused,

That is purely conjecture and therefore at this time completely irrelevant.

But i admit I went beyond most religious peoples personal limits when i belittled God in my previous post.

For that. I am sorry and will not go so far again.

Marcus

The FSM is just a cast member. The *real* PTB are some inscrutable, extradimensional alien(s) using our silly world as a Beyond Reality Show. They have orbital platforms with soap opera radiation weapons, and the tinfoil hats are no help.

IIRC, there's a Futurama episode that hints at this Great Truth