Praying won't help you...

[gedward3]

While were on the subject of God and whether there is or isnt.

Does anyone have any views on the supernatural, ghosts, spirits and poltergiests.

I for one believe in God as that is how ive been brought up. I like to think that its taught me to respect life and that of others'. Spirits and the afterlife seem to fit in with what religion ive been raised with.

How do you view spirits, are they in the afterlife and coming back.

Just interested to see what atheists believe and what they represent to you.

Ged

 

[tenbobtrader]

YouTube - Dave Allen on Religion

may your God go with you

 

[Splitlink]

You've got to keep a sense of humour.

 

[Trader333]

Nazism and Communism are not in any way religious. The only comparison that can be made between these and religion is that they are a belief system but then everyone has a belief system of some type.


Paul

 

[Trader333]

The thing is that religion is needed to guide the weak.

I know of more weak people who are not religious than the other way around. I don't see why religion is needed to guide weak people any more than those who are strong.


Paul

 

[Splitlink]

I don't know whether it is needed or not, but more wars have been created in the name of God than anything else. Religious leaders rouse the faithful into a frenzy and most countries have a Memorial Day to pray for those who fell in the name of God. Even enemies believe that the same God is on their side. Personally, I think that those who believe in that way are very ignorant and it is only recently that, in the West, educated people are questioning all this.

The Church has fought, tooth and nail, anything to do from abortion and preservatives to women priests until recently and it will continue to oppose everything that it considers to be a threat to its power. The Islamic religion follows the same path, which is why it opposes the West. It is fighting a losing battle, though.

But, to answer your question, Paul, any person who follows a leader into a religious war is stupid and morally weak.

 

[DaveJB]

Without God there would be no atheists

Ox Bol, (rearrange to suit).
Some of the people I like and respect most in this world are religiously inclined, I've always been interested in how their faith was fuelled, and I like to think that the sincerity of my questions was so apparent that they've explained to me why they came to believe what thy did. (One of them is a vicar, I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of what I have been privileged to hear).

'God speaks to each of us individually, he calls in a way that is individually geared - what persuades one person to 'convert' on the spot will not necessarily affect another...in fact it may even seem ludicrous to anyone except the one called. God calls each of us, at some point, in an uniquivocal manner.'

Fair enough - I know how the vicar was called, and personally I think he was just hung over and possibly a bit spaced out... I am now 54 and have yet to hear anything personally, and I'd actually welcome it because my brain seems programmed to 'Vulcan' and quite frankly faith would take a fair old load off my shoulders at times, whilst I currently rely on myself to sort problems out. I take my roles in life seriously, I figure the buck stops here, family and friends can count on me to go into bat for them and I'd dearly love to be able, just now and then, to believe I had a backstop.

On the other hand, I was brought up C of E, we all had a C of E start to each school day, hymns etc and the odd visit from a vicar. I had a belief system brainwashed into me from preschool years, in fact. Deciding this was all BS took a degree of effort - this is more persuasive to me than any amount of happy clapping. I remain hopeful of being converted, but it'll be because God realised the 'faith' idea is complete BS and put some work in to redress the bad PR.

Religion has never caused wars - it has, however, frequently provided the excuse for one. Despite all my doubts I do accept that many religions attempt to impose a thoroughly acceptable moral system on mankind, who would otherwise be the most ignoble of species.

Dave
(aka Pope Bolleaux I)

 

[Atilla]

Another interesting thread that pulls one in like - moth to the flame...

To me God is the same as zero. It is absolutely necessary to our understanding of all that is around us just like it is important to the beginning and end of eternity.

Without a key spot in absolute free space of time, we can never quite know what we are or where we are. It is of absolute interest because not knowing the beginning the start means we'll never know the absolute end. We are like hamsters on a wheel.

However, trying to explain what zero is - is very difficult indeed. It is like explaining what "nothing" is to a child.

Humans are intrinsically spiritual. That is the essence - some call it the soul - is in us all. There is no science that can explain measure or observe love, hate, pain, laughter, humour, faith - basically human emotions. We have dimmer switches that control flow of electricity currents. There is nothing in science that controls human emotions (there are some drugs but their effects are temporary with some heavy side affects :cheesy.

However, there is religions that taps into these emotions in an effort to provide some answers and control these emotions. By all accounts if the individual is caught young enough it does a pretty good job at brain washing people.

Either religions are very good in this respect or there is an internal tendency in the human species that lends it self to this trait. People so much want to believe.

We know where we come from (our parents), we know life and we desperately want to know where we will end up. In fact because of who we are the superior species - we are not satisfied with life as is - we want to know where the parents of our parents have come from and still not satisfied we want to know where we will be for ever and ever. Creations of spirits and ghosts are in part a fullfillment of this desire for us to live beyond our deaths. To hope there is something more to life that continues beyond when we die.

IMHO there is no God. My gods are my parents. They have created me. Do I believe in God the creator of my parents parents. Well pure logic says there must be a zero God as the beginning of it all.

Is this God in the guise of any religion Christian Muslim or Jew (and all the others)? No for sure. How can they all believe in one God and fighting over him. As for their Gods if it is as they say a very super all powerful God then it's a pretty psychotic God who sees all his children fighting and does absolutely nothing to stop them but watch.

This God that has supposed to have created the universe and the planets and all the creatures on this planet can't be arsed to lift up his finger (only an expression as no doubt God does not need a finger or has one) to stop the mayhem on just one of his special planets where he has deemed worthy of what we know as life.

If I may be rude and state that I now think believers in God are egoistic individuals who are disillusioned with self indulgence so much to believe that we will not die and somehow have a chance of living/existing forever. Pretty much same as the Pharaohs thinking of immortality that one day they would wake up with all their servants and live again. Not much different to thinking of one day we will walk in heaven forever and ever.


One only has to sit opposite a dead corpse for couple of months to see, hear, smell, taste and feel the corpse to realise what will become of us.

What more proof does anybody need for God sake...

 

[DaveJB]

Sorry,
but saying things like

Well pure logic says there must be a zero God as the beginning of it all.

doesn't make it true - pure logic says nothing of the sort. Perhaps the human race would be a bit more inclined to all pull together if we stopped trying to offload the blame onto some illogical construct rather than facing the sad fact that 'where we are' is the result of 'where we were' with a big lump of 'what we did next' applied to it.

Without a key spot in absolute free space of time, we can never quite know what we are or where we are.

I'm quite happy with who I am without some external, invisible, frame of reference to support me... particularly one where I'm in the dwang if I don't believe automatically without further need for proof - so your premise is incorrect*.

*Edited to add that I accept that a great many people feel differently - my argument is simply with the way you've tarted faith up as fact. Notwithstanding this I envy you your apparent faith, I'm human enough to see that it is a great comfort to some and when all else fails blind faith might be all anyone has left to face the world.

 

[Trader333]

Religious leaders rouse the faithful into a frenzy and most countries have a Memorial Day to pray for those who fell in the name of God.

I am not aware of this can you give some examples ? I am aware of memorial days for wars but not on religious grounds or religious wars.

Also more people were killed under Chairman Mao's spread of communism than any previous war in history and that was not religious.


Paul

 

[tar]

God said in Quran which means in english (( Nay, I swear by the places of the stars * And most surely it is a very great oath if you only knew * That (this) is indeed a noble Qur’an ))

search about the positions of the stars !

 

[Atilla]

Sorry,
but saying things like doesn't make it true - pure logic says nothing of the sort. Perhaps the human race would be a bit more inclined to all pull together if we stopped trying to offload the blame onto some illogical construct rather than facing the sad fact that 'where we are' is the result of 'where we were' with a big lump of 'what we did next' applied to it.



I'm quite happy with who I am without some external, invisible, frame of reference to support me... particularly one where I'm in the dwang if I don't believe automatically without further need for proof - so your premise is incorrect*.

*Edited to add that I accept that a great many people feel differently - my argument is simply with the way you've tarted faith up as fact. Notwithstanding this I envy you your apparent faith, I'm human enough to see that it is a great comfort to some and when all else fails blind faith might be all anyone has left to face the world.

What I am trying to convey with zero and God as being one and the same is that what ever question one poses about where we all came from or what the beginning was must inevitably be labelled as some point in what ever reference realm dimension etc one is searching in.

For all we know point zero or God the creator was some random coincidental events that happened to be and a lightning strike which was enough to provide energy for the birth of living cells. Who knows... ??? Maybe the big bang theory, the exploding star or whatever who knows the beginning.

There has to be a beginning. There has to be an end. Who knows where we are in that spectrum??? My analogy was a hamster on a wheel with us on that spectrum of life going round and round. We get on and we get off. But where did that blasted wheel in my cage of awareness come from???

Once again I know my parents and I believe I can pretty much guess my end. I'm happy.

In fact I see religions similar to gangs or football clubs. They have initiation ceremonies, rules and even dress code like football shirts. Be funny if religions played football against each other dressed in their robes instead of fighting wars.

If you go against any religion they gang up on you and kill you. If you choose to be like them they think you are great and give you honours and respect. I don't understand why God needs us puny humans to do his defending or dirty work.


You say pure logic says nothing of the sort. Perhaps you are right - as this sentence has raised the question in my mind of what pure logic is? It is possible my logic is biased and impure based on my set of experiences.

Perhaps I'm extrapolating from pure numbers too much. I like to keep my mind open to all possibilities. I have in the past found that organised religion often tries to close peoples minds to anything that does not conform to a particular set of views.

 

[Splitlink]

I am not aware of this can you give some examples ? I am aware of memorial days for wars but not on religious grounds or religious wars.

Also more people were killed under Chairman Mao's spread of communism than any previous war in history and that was not religious.


Paul

Paul,

I am not going to make a debate on whether wars are remembered on religious grounds, or not. Jerusalem was nothing but the object of crusades that lasted centuries. Spain's war with the English was financed by Rome. Modern Western wars have been fought, not on religious grounds but we have all been taught that He was on our side. The strange thing is that the Germans and Italians were, also, taught that He was on their side, too. So who's side was He on?

All this is generally known so, surely, there is no argument necessary?

I believe that God exists, but take another man's teachings and say that he knows more than I do? No thanks, I've got my own ideas and no one can say that they are not as valid as anyone elses.

 

[tar]

Big Bang

God said in Quran which means in english : (( Do not the Unbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were joined together (as one unit of creation), before we clove them asunder? ))


God is talking to humanity in the present time ...

 

[DaveJB]

Attila,
nothing personal - your use of the word logic and mine are poles apart, and lead you to make statements like

There has to be a beginning. There has to be an end.

as if that's somehow self evidently so - as far as physics goes there's no reason to suppose that time itself existed prior to the Big Bang, (equally there might be a continuing series of Big Bangs, some of which made time and space, many of which did not, whilst others popped in and out in a varying number of dimensions fairly chaotically just for the craic)... We 'expect' there to be a beginning and an end because our experience of life is that it starts and stops, but that doesn't mean that time has to do the same.

As for the quotes from the Quran - sorry Tar, just 'cos some old geezers wrote it down a long time back don't make it so, but I'm pleased it makes you happy.

It really is dead simple - (A) some people have faith, or want faith for whatever reason, and need it in their lives. (B) Others see it as illogical, unneccessary, and quite often annoying (those burned as witches or heretics, for example). Group A will never persuade Group B to believe, Group B will never persuade A to stop doing so. Personally I can live with (A) provided they stop being so bloody sure the rest of us are merely unenlightened, whereas we're actually merely surprised at the credulity of others.

None of this thread's past 10 pages affects trading, although I think there might be a market for a Metatrader 4 EA where you press a key and the chart starts to draw a perfectly progression of bars (up or down trend to choice)... it doesn't really alter the price, it just gives you a short feeling of having averted doom until you realise the market just spat in your eye again.

 

[tar]

As for the quotes from the Quran - sorry Tar, just 'cos some old geezers wrote it down a long time back don't make it so, but I'm pleased it makes you happy.
.

How they knew about the big bang or the ( positions of stars ) b4 1400 years ? It is God words

 

[Atilla]

Attila,
nothing personal - your use of the word logic and mine are poles apart, and lead you to make statements like as if that's somehow self evidently so - as far as physics goes there's no reason to suppose that time itself existed prior to the Big Bang, (equally there might be a continuing series of Big Bangs, some of which made time and space, many of which did not, whilst others popped in and out in a varying number of dimensions fairly chaotically just for the craic)... We 'expect' there to be a beginning and an end because our experience of life is that it starts and stops, but that doesn't mean that time has to do the same.

As for the quotes from the Quran - sorry Tar, just 'cos some old geezers wrote it down a long time back don't make it so, but I'm pleased it makes you happy.

It really is dead simple - (A) some people have faith, or want faith for whatever reason, and need it in their lives. (B) Others see it as illogical, unneccessary, and quite often annoying (those burned as witches or heretics, for example). Group A will never persuade Group B to believe, Group B will never persuade A to stop doing so. Personally I can live with (A) provided they stop being so bloody sure the rest of us are merely unenlightened, whereas we're actually merely surprised at the credulity of others.

None of this thread's past 10 pages affects trading, although I think there might be a market for a Metatrader 4 EA where you press a key and the chart starts to draw a perfectly progression of bars (up or down trend to choice)... it doesn't really alter the price, it just gives you a short feeling of having averted doom until you realise the market just spat in your eye again.

No offence taken and feel free to be as liberal as you like... I'm thick skinned and robust enough to enjoy pondering about these things.

Interesting to hear another explanation of the time dimension as well as the mushroom theory of big bangs. I mean time is merely a creation of the human mind. Does time really exist? Can trees tell the time? Do they care?

I like the idea of simply existing.

In symmetry to consider death - I would like to see my two children to adult hood. Hopefully to see them graduate from University and the ultimate is to have couple of grand children to experience the birth of new life from the gene pool again.

I will then happily pass over to the dark side. If death comes knocking on my door before then I may have a few regrets at missing out on some experiences I would have enjoyed but hey Cest la vie eh? :cheesy:

 

[dick_dastardly]

Eternity is a very very long time. Can you imagine how long that would be?

If you could choose between living for eternity or just living an average human life span followed by the inky blackness of void and oblivion, which would you choose?

At first glance this may look like a no brainer, but is it?

Is immortality a fate worse than death?

dd

 

[counter_violent]

Eternity is a very very long time. Can you imagine how long that would be?

If you could choose between living for eternity or just living an average human life span followed by the inky blackness of void and oblivion, which would you choose?

At first glance this may look like a no brainer, but is it?

Is immortality a fate worse than death?

dd

Considering all the sh!t we go through while were here.....I will be glad of the rest !

 

[Trader333]

If you go against any religion they gang up on you and kill you

I don't agree at all with this in the modern day context. Most Christian religions will not try and kill you if you are against them and in Buddhism as well as many Eastern based religions it is only when they have been attacked that they would defend themselves.


Paul