Evolutionists

Faith does work for everyone. you say you prayed for things that never happened. Ever asked yourself why? I guess then you never knew God personally. You believed in God but if you knew him you should know that everything has a purpose. Many of our preayers are very very selfish and if they happened they could harm us more than benefit us. God knows the final outcome and the consecuences of our wishes and knows which ones benefit us and which ones dont. This makes us mad especially me and we start arguing with god things like why cant that girl be my girlfriend, or why cant i have that big house instead of this lame apartment, or why do i have to back down if that guy insulted me, i want to kick his butt. well lets analyze it. it didnt happen because god knew that if that girl became my girl she would of have cheated on me and made me suffer a lot more than what i suffered giving her up. God made me stay in my apartment because i could confortably pay it and have good money left to spend in other necesary things, with the big house i could easily go into bankruptcy. and also if i punched the guy and beat the sh** out of him, he could later find me crossing the street and run me over with his car. What im saying is that if we know God personally we will understand when the answer is no even if we throw a tantrum or two. In the end we know his desicion is the best for us. If it helps, look at it like a good loving father that knows whats best for his son. Most christians like me are a bit rebelious but in the end we learn the hard way. God also disciplines those that he loves especially with the consecuences or our acts------------------
BIG Bang=Bigger JOke

Yeah, it turned out the answer was simple. There wasn't any god to answer the prayers. Hence, atheism. What, a purpose I simply couldn't understand? How could I know god and yet not know his purposes? And how could a purpose of good in the world result in so much suffering? Hey, I'm not stupid. I knew what prayers were selfish and what were not. I even knew what prayers were too ambitious, though no one ever called them such. I didn't pray for personal gain nor for an end to world suffering.I prayed that my friend wouldn't succumb to the evils of drugs. He did. I prayed for the strength to not fail my classes again this semester. I didn't get it.You can say I wasn't a true christian, or that I didn't know god, or whatever. But the truth was, I was as true a christian as anyone could be. As true a one as you are, I'm sure. And god never did anything to me.I know this sounds angry or harsh or something - I'm actually not angry in the least. Not at god, or at you, or at myself. I'm just trying to impress upon you that if it's your belief that faith in god has tangible results in the real world to every person of faith, it's just not true. People of faith are no more likely to have good things happen to them than anybody else.Believe in god, if you like. I personally don't see much point in belief and worship of a god that never acts in a way distinguishable from simple, random chance.[This message has been edited by crashfrog, 06-23-2003]

"Faith does work for everyone."This is just a patently false statement. If faith worked for everybody, we would all believe. Obviously there are a lot of non-believers out there who left the faith because it didn't work for them, so your statement is false.

Hi Jazzlover,I agree with you; faith is an important element in religious belief. I am happy to declare that I have faith in the One God, He who is Merciful and Compassionate, and He who does not have a son, or burden humans with original sin. Nature is His verses, and I try my best to read it to understand how He works.Oh wait, I assume your faith is different stuff? That Jesus died on a cross so that all of us can go happily to heaven? No, I don't have faith in that blasphemy. How dare you Christians believe that God has a son, or worse, that God looks like a human!!See. that's the problem with faith. We're all subjective and emotional when faith gets to scientific questions.

Best just to leave it out altogether, Andya. Faith and science is dangerous - it produces people like Dr. John Baumgardner and Ron Wyatt for example...Here's an interesting idea - faith is essential for religious belief, but it is possible to have faith without adhering to any religion.Wouldn't it be nice if religion was abolished and people just had faith?The Rock Hound

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I agree with you; faith is an important element in religious belief. I am happy to declare that I have faith in the One God, He who is Merciful and Compassionate, and He who does not have a son, or burden humans with original sin. Nature is His verses, and I try my best to read it to understand how He works.

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Oh wait, I assume your faith is different stuff? That Jesus died on a cross so that all of us can go happily to heaven? No, I don't have faith in that blasphemy. How dare you Christians believe that God has a son, or worse, that God looks like a human!!

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See. that's the problem with faith. We're all subjective and emotional when faith gets to scientific questions.

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Uh-oh, there you go trying to introduce a larger perspective via the use of irony. And we all know fundamentalism and irony are mutually exclusive.********Oh, and my serious thoughts in the context of this thread: I have all sorts of cognitive dissonance when it comes to my beliefs... I feel something like a pantheist but think like a pretty convinced atheist. I draw the line between enjoying the possibility of something beyond nature and ordering my life around it (and imposing that order on others).*edited to include the quote that I forgot the first time*[This message has been edited by zephyr, 06-25-2003]

Rocky, Sounds like you've got something in mind here...would you expound on it? I've said something similar myself, but I don't know if I agree with it still.I would say that, as an aside, if you have faith in something, even through prayer, your optimism may possibly work for you to help achieve your desired ends. The rather odd point I think I'm working toward here is that perhaps faith is good for something. Even if there is no God, if you think there is and by praying to him(her/it) it helps you attain the serenity or confidence you need in order to have success in your endeavors, perhaps it's worth trying.wr/Geno

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Sounds like you've got something in mind here...would you expound on it? I've said something similar myself, but I don't know if I agree with it still.

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Hmm, how to explain this...If you are part of a religion, you must have some kind of faith in the tenets of that religion - like Christians having faith in the Bible. However, it is possible to have faith in the supernatural, to believe in something greater than yourself, but to ignore any formalised religious institutions. People can believe in God, but not belong to any of the numerous flavours of Christianity, say.

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I would say that, as an aside, if you have faith in something, even through prayer, your optimism may possibly work for you to help achieve your desired ends. The rather odd point I think I'm working toward here is that perhaps faith is good for something. Even if there is no God, if you think there is and by praying to him(her/it) it helps you attain the serenity or confidence you need in order to have success in your endeavors, perhaps it's worth trying.

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I've always thought that nine-tenths of doing something is believing you can do it, i.e. having faith in yourself. It's more or less the same thing if you believe that God will help you do it - it's just another source of faith.The Rock Hound------------------
"Science constantly poses questions, where religion can only shout about answers."

Hi Jazzlover,Thank you for your personal account of how you see things. You sound like a friendly and reasonable person. Since you said that it's only human to want to see first and then believe, I expect you won't mind me demonstrating my human nature by asking: what have you experienced that convinced you that your belief was justified?You said you took the bet and came out a winner. The way I interpret this is that you chose to believe in God and that at some point you somehow realised that your faith was rewarded, am I right? Could you be more specific? I'm not seeking to be converted, as you'll understand if you've read some of my previous posts, but I would like to understand your point of view.Thanks.

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I've always thought that nine-tenths of doing something is believing you can do it

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Have you ever done any reading on Chaos Magik?

Why think that the creation of life was so difficult if if can be easily explained in Genesis? ​ Look! Genesis can be proven! ​ It talks about the creation of the land, the oceans, the stars, animals, man. I see all of it around me. There's evidence of the Genesis creation story. Taadah!

I don't know who you quoted here, Geno, but that statement seems ridiculous to me . Yes things exist, but a holy book stating that God made it so doesn't make it true. I could write a book in which I could take the "dinosaur fossils planted to make us believe the devil's evil!" argument to its ultimate extreme: we all evolved 2 seconds ago with our false memories of having lived here longer. Just because a book says it doesn't make my words true.You made a jokey comment, but who DID you quote there?------------------

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All the boys think she's a spy

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