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Yuri-'s unholy Backstreet Boys obsession manifested in:
It's just it seems a lot of people join the atheist bandwagon because it's 'hip'. I think that people should spend a long time studying theology before making rash remarks like 'There is no God. I'm the highest being out there.'

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So you assumed I joined the atheist bandwagon because it's hip. kay.

1. I'm agnostic. There is a difference, if only a small one.

2. I think I'm about the only person in my town that is agnostic.

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Karnaj thought this was the Ricky Martin Fan Club Forum and wrote:
you should instead view it as the point of a cone from which space and time began. Saying that something created the Big Bang implies that there was something before the Big Bang, which, according to the current predictions and evidence, is ruled out by its definition. The universe, quite simply, has existed for all time. It didn't come from anywhere; it's always been there.

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My problem is that a lot of this 'evidence' is pure speculation. We try to take information from what we gather on earth to explain everything in the universe. I've seen some theories that talk about how the universe is expanding (which we dont know, we can only prove that the galaxies are drifting apart), and it may collapse on itself as gravitational links between all the galaxies weaken. Just stuff like that is mostly a weak hypothesis by a few scientists, some say it's always been there, and some say it has a finite lifetime.

I'm not saying down the road we wont have the answer to the creation of the universe, imagine what we will know in another 500 years.

But for me and a lot of people I know, it's easier for us to understand the concept of an omnipotent being creating the universe then it does to try and grasp a bunch of scientific theories that are largely unsupported.

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Reynar had this to say about Matthew Broderick:
But for me and a lot of people I know, it's easier for us to understand the concept of an omnipotent being creating the universe then it does to try and grasp a bunch of scientific theories that are largely unsupported.

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But isn't the idea of an omnipotent creator largely speculative and unsupported as well?

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Stiddy had this to say about Jimmy Carter:
But isn't the idea of an omnipotent creator largely speculative and unsupported as well?

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I didn't say it wasn't. But I said it was easier to understand the concept. Just like it used to be easier to understand that the world was flat. I didn't say I was right, I was just saying this is part of the reason a lot of people are not pure atheists. Not everyone is an Astronomer.

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How.... Gadanii.... uughhhhhh:
So you assumed I joined the atheist bandwagon because it's hip. kay.

1. I'm agnostic. There is a difference, if only a small one.

2. I think I'm about the only person in my town that is agnostic.

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If you are agnostic then you believe in a higher being which refutes you saying: "That's the answer I've been sticking with. " in regards to "The answer is apparent: there is no God".

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Yuri- had this to say about Captain Planet:
If you are agnostic then you believe in a higher being which refutes you saying: "That's the answer I've been sticking with. " in regards to "The answer is apparent: there is no God".

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ag·nos·tic

1. One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.

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Gadanii probably says this to all the girls:
[QB]Why does God let bad things happen?[QB]

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God doesn't let bad things happen. We have codes of conducts passed down to us through the ages to help encourage people to respect each other, in his absence.

Religious beliefs, and some forms of philosophy, is little more than different ways-of-living with expessed codes of conduct, like the Ten Commandments. It's our failure to respect and adhere to these codes of conduct that leads to bad things happening. (Or, in some cases, bad things come from a person or group's vehement desire to adhere to these codes of conduct.

Some religious people will say that God allows suffering so we can learn to overcome our obstacles on the path of life so we can become better human beings and hopefully have a better afterlife.

I, personally, don't think we need to be religious to understand that concept. We all have obstacles to overcome and it's how we learn to cope with what life throws at us. Sometimes we were given better coping skills in our childhood then others and that allows us to better deal with these obstacles. This doesn't require any faith-based beliefs.

While I'm obviously not religious, sometimes I do want to believe that I'll be reincarnated so I can have a chance to fly into space and visit other planets inhabited by intelligent life as a human being.

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Yuri- startled the peaceful upland Gorillas by blurting:
If you are agnostic then you believe in a higher being which refutes you saying: "That's the answer I've been sticking with. " in regards to "The answer is apparent: there is no God".

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Wow.

For someone who claims to have studied theology, one would think you'd at least know the definitions of the various related terms.

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Reynar has a secret obsession with Richard Simmons, as evidenced by...
I didn't say it wasn't. But I said it was easier to understand the concept. Just like it used to be easier to understand that the world was flat. I didn't say I was right, I was just saying this is part of the reason a lot of people are not pure atheists. Not everyone is an Astronomer.

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So basically it's the easy way out.

kk

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Chief Durkin's momma typed this shizzle:
The exact process by which God would allow free will without allowing bad things to happen doesn't even figure into it, if god IS omnipotent, then by definition, he can allow free will without allowing bad things to happen.

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I'm a Buddhist, and I agree with Demos' posting. I don't believe in the concept of God in the sense that this question implies, but just for kicks and giggles I'll argue along with Maradon.

Let's go with this scenario. A boulder falls and kills 10 decent, God-loving people. Let us say this falls under the category of 'bad thing'. Now, would it not easily be within God's omnipotent power to have created a holy force-field around these men, thus saving their lives - preventing the 'bad thing'? Now how does this interfere with their free will in any way? In fact, it would EXPAND their free will, because they would know that, as there is an allpowerful benevolent God watching over their every move, they would fear nothing and would have the freedom to, say, walk into the heart of an active volcano, which is denied them by the existence of pain death and other 'bad things'.

So, since God can protect people, without interfering with 'free will', why not?

(just so you know I'm aware that the above paragraph is pretty simplistic and i am in fact being somewhat facetious in posting it. but i'm curious as to your intellectual response to it.)

and why is it I keep getting the 'momma typed this shizzle' one when I reply?

[ 12-24-2003: Message edited by: Gunslinger Moogle ]