The athiest I know rarely talk about religion, it's of little interest to them so why bother. I think you're way off base with your statement.
I am an Atheist and always have been.
- Thread starter Bretrick
- Start date
To each their own imo. I don't push what I think on others but don't you go push it on me either. And don't come knocking on my door in what should be my private home either.
There's been a lot of good done in the name of religion but it's also used by some with very bad results like cults, SA in the Catholic Church or just making money off gullible people. But again a lot of good too. Not everyone in a church setting is a hypocrite.
I could never be an Atheist but again to each their own, I won't push what I believe, just don't on me. I do question things and I'm not one for organized religion or church but I do believe in some morals and something bigger than us.
I'm never giving up meat either. Lol. But I do love veggies as well.
My kids who are now longtime adults, well one in particular went through her phases in high school, where she got such from trends or friends... Oh I'm not eating red meat... Okay... Then it was no meat... Okay... It didn't last but a few weeks... Lol. My adult kids are more adventurous with food today than I even am. I'm pretty good but they eat about every cuisine...
There were also phases with politics and what they thought of the world, and of religion...
And guess what? THey had minds of their own and when a bit older, looked into all themselves and came pretty much to what I'd raised them with... But with them, as I said, to each their own as well.
We all need to choose what we believe...
The high school things were friends, teachers and for lack of a better word trendy...
I prefer also to believe there is a higher power and that there is an afterlife and I will see lost loved ones again. To not have that faith, I wouldn't have gotten through many things, if I did not have that hope and belief. To this day. So for that alone, I find it a good thing. It gets one through the worst of times.
There's been a lot of good done in the name of religion but it's also used by some with very bad results like cults, SA in the Catholic Church or just making money off gullible people. But again a lot of good too. Not everyone in a church setting is a hypocrite.
I could never be an Atheist but again to each their own, I won't push what I believe, just don't on me. I do question things and I'm not one for organized religion or church but I do believe in some morals and something bigger than us.
I'm never giving up meat either. Lol. But I do love veggies as well.
My kids who are now longtime adults, well one in particular went through her phases in high school, where she got such from trends or friends... Oh I'm not eating red meat... Okay... Then it was no meat... Okay... It didn't last but a few weeks... Lol. My adult kids are more adventurous with food today than I even am. I'm pretty good but they eat about every cuisine...
There were also phases with politics and what they thought of the world, and of religion...
And guess what? THey had minds of their own and when a bit older, looked into all themselves and came pretty much to what I'd raised them with... But with them, as I said, to each their own as well.
We all need to choose what we believe...
The high school things were friends, teachers and for lack of a better word trendy...
I prefer also to believe there is a higher power and that there is an afterlife and I will see lost loved ones again. To not have that faith, I wouldn't have gotten through many things, if I did not have that hope and belief. To this day. So for that alone, I find it a good thing. It gets one through the worst of times.
Sunkist
Senior Member
Right on! That's the right way to raise kids!!!!
I don't know of anyone perfect in this life. I do agree on coming to your house uninvited. I was out pulling weeds in the front one day
and 2 ladies walked up to me handed me a pamphlet began telling me about their church, I politely said I am not interested. They asked why.
I said because I don't intend to create discord in my home with 2 religious beliefs so different. Then she says:
"Simply don't tell him and come see for yourself our church may fit your needs"
I looked at her questionably and said "Do you honestly think I want to attend a church who just tried to have me basically lie to my
husband, I think you should leave and not come back"
I really don't think her church agreed to this tactic for her to use but still she was representing them. No Thank You! But if I run into
someone of that same faith, I don't blame the well known church or the faith , it was the person.
Sunkist
Senior Member
What does any of that have to do with my reply TO the person who posted above me???
Maybe I interpreted something you said in a way it was not meant, sorry for upsetting you.
This is what jogged my memory
And don't come knocking on my door in what should be my private home either.
Sunkist
Senior Member
When I replied to the other member, I put the part I was referring to in bold print- the part where she said her kids have minds of their own and were making their own decisions.
That was all I was referring to.
This was what she said:
There were also phases with politics and what they thought of the world, and of religion...
And guess what? THey had minds of their own and when a bit older, looked into all themselves and came pretty much to what I'd raised them with... But with them, as I said, to each their own as well.
OK thank you, brain dead here, Thanks Mack. I better not just reply, been a rough few days, again , Sunkist I did not mean
to upset you and sorry I did.
Thanks for sharing, very well said, much respect.
MACKTEXAS
Well-known Member
Oh no, neither of you did anything to upset me, nor did I mean to imply that. I'm not upset. I was just reading (with interest) the exchange the two of you were having and decided to backtrack and see where that phrase "don't come knocking on my door" first appeared.
I hope you're feeling some better today and will soon have this health setback behind you.
David777
Well-known Member
- Location
- Silicon Valley
Strong Anthropic Principal and God
Our Milky Way Galaxy is between 100,000 and 200,000 light years in diameter. The size of the observable universe is supposedly 93,000,000,000 light years or about 500,000 times the size of our galaxy. Thus even the galaxy we exist within is but a tiny fraction of the whole. Since the life of Jesus, even Earth reflected light from our sun that shown down on Earth from those days, has barely reached more than one-hundredth of the way across our own galaxy of stars. (200,000/2,000) The nearest large galaxy to the Milky Way, Andromeda, is about 2,500,000 light years away or at least a dozen times the size of either galaxy.
Thus there is no way, what happened here on Earth in Jesus's days has spread across out into our universe more than a trivial distance. Although some will blurt out that their god can do anything doable, if one does not include illogical nonsense magic, actions without forces, that means just a trivial distance. I am one that expects light speed is a true limitation in physical reality. And I suspect it serves a purpose in allowing intelligent entities to exist without being destroyed by most other like entities.
Why would our universe and possibly beyond be so spread out that very little that happens in one place ever can affect the vast things visibly beyond? Well because in a universe where given the parameters of matter, spacetime, fields, and energy, we find ourselves within, organic intelligence can evolve without being destroyed by other entities because they are so isolated.
Isolation allows evolved intelligent entities to exist without being destroyed by but an infinitesimal small number of near others within any reasonable amount of time. Even some evil entities existing beyond one tenth of the diameter of our Milky Way distant from Earth, would have no way to even know anything about our events. Likewise, whatever occurs in Andromeda, is so isolated by immense time that it is inconsequential even for the most powerful imaginable intelligent entities.
Bible scripture points in this direction as Jesus himself speaking related the following in Luke's gospel:
Luke 16:26 (Jesus) ...And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set, so that those who want to go over from here to you will not be able, nor will any people cross over from there to us.
If time is eternal as I suspect is probable due to obvious logic, including into the past as in no beginning, if matter, spacetime, fields, and energy, evolved over periods of infinite universes like our Big Bang, coming and going, then one might expect it would evolve to stable states where life and intelligent entities themselves acted as factors for keeping it so, as we seem to find. And for that to occur, if there was not a speed limit as light speed, then intelligent entities could destroy each other, an unstable mode.
We also can glean from both OT and NT scripture, again for whatever that is worth, that malevolent entities exist. Both in Genesis (Garden of Eden tempter and Job) and much in the NT (especially Revelation). If light speed is indeed a real limitation, then even the influence of God has spacetime limits, beyond which are unknowns, unaffected.
Accordingly, I suspect a reason we find ourselves in such a fine-tuned universe that allows life is because given infinite time, it has become stabilized so that intelligent entities themselves act as an active factor to keep it so. And that includes what some term god, although as I related in the past, that is not one with omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence, powers.
It also means, if such powerful UIE entities exist, their influence in an amount of spacetime has limitations. If UIEs exists in one galaxy, other galaxies are so distant that they are effectively isolated.
Our Milky Way Galaxy is between 100,000 and 200,000 light years in diameter. The size of the observable universe is supposedly 93,000,000,000 light years or about 500,000 times the size of our galaxy. Thus even the galaxy we exist within is but a tiny fraction of the whole. Since the life of Jesus, even Earth reflected light from our sun that shown down on Earth from those days, has barely reached more than one-hundredth of the way across our own galaxy of stars. (200,000/2,000) The nearest large galaxy to the Milky Way, Andromeda, is about 2,500,000 light years away or at least a dozen times the size of either galaxy.
Thus there is no way, what happened here on Earth in Jesus's days has spread across out into our universe more than a trivial distance. Although some will blurt out that their god can do anything doable, if one does not include illogical nonsense magic, actions without forces, that means just a trivial distance. I am one that expects light speed is a true limitation in physical reality. And I suspect it serves a purpose in allowing intelligent entities to exist without being destroyed by most other like entities.
Why would our universe and possibly beyond be so spread out that very little that happens in one place ever can affect the vast things visibly beyond? Well because in a universe where given the parameters of matter, spacetime, fields, and energy, we find ourselves within, organic intelligence can evolve without being destroyed by other entities because they are so isolated.
Isolation allows evolved intelligent entities to exist without being destroyed by but an infinitesimal small number of near others within any reasonable amount of time. Even some evil entities existing beyond one tenth of the diameter of our Milky Way distant from Earth, would have no way to even know anything about our events. Likewise, whatever occurs in Andromeda, is so isolated by immense time that it is inconsequential even for the most powerful imaginable intelligent entities.
Bible scripture points in this direction as Jesus himself speaking related the following in Luke's gospel:
Luke 16:26 (Jesus) ...And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set, so that those who want to go over from here to you will not be able, nor will any people cross over from there to us.
If time is eternal as I suspect is probable due to obvious logic, including into the past as in no beginning, if matter, spacetime, fields, and energy, evolved over periods of infinite universes like our Big Bang, coming and going, then one might expect it would evolve to stable states where life and intelligent entities themselves acted as factors for keeping it so, as we seem to find. And for that to occur, if there was not a speed limit as light speed, then intelligent entities could destroy each other, an unstable mode.
We also can glean from both OT and NT scripture, again for whatever that is worth, that malevolent entities exist. Both in Genesis (Garden of Eden tempter and Job) and much in the NT (especially Revelation). If light speed is indeed a real limitation, then even the influence of God has spacetime limits, beyond which are unknowns, unaffected.
Accordingly, I suspect a reason we find ourselves in such a fine-tuned universe that allows life is because given infinite time, it has become stabilized so that intelligent entities themselves act as an active factor to keep it so. And that includes what some term god, although as I related in the past, that is not one with omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence, powers.
It also means, if such powerful UIE entities exist, their influence in an amount of spacetime has limitations. If UIEs exists in one galaxy, other galaxies are so distant that they are effectively isolated.
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Sunkist
Senior Member
Have you ever thought of writing a book???
Sunkist
Senior Member
Is there some other way of replying to a specific part of a person's post, other than the way I did it???
It didn't occur to me unless someone reading it clicked on 'click to expand,' the part I bolded wouldn't be visible.
MACKTEXAS
Well-known Member
You can highlight with your cursor a portion of a post, then you'll see an option to reply. Click that and it will only put that portion in your new post. Answer that.
When you've finished that step, but there is more further down in their post that you want to answer, , repeat the above process and it will put that part as a second item into your new post which you can answer separately below it.
Sunkist
Senior Member
Considering how long this thread has become, I may have missed something, but I don't know why you're mentioning me in this ^
Sunkist
Senior Member
I'll try to figure out how to do that the next time I reply to part of a post.
MACKTEXAS
Well-known Member
You were both writing about a topic. I commented on the exchange you were having. Neither of you upset me. whether or not that matters to you, it did to her.
Sunkist
Senior Member
Oh ok.
All I meant was I didn't know you were involved in the conversation.
It's not my intent to upset anybody.
MACKTEXAS
Well-known Member
I wasn't involved in the conversation between you and IrishEyes, but I found post number 202 where the phrase don't come knocking on my door" first appeared, so I let you both know. [I've already explained that.]
I'm done for the day. Have a good night.
JustDave
Well-known Member
Atheists are not the ones knocking on my door with their literature, or trying to convert me to their church, to save my soul, or found wearing sandwich boards on busy street corners warning us of the rapture, or pointing a finger at someone saying, "The wages of sin is death!" It wasn't atheists that flew planes filled with innocents into the twin towers.
Lara
Friend of the Arts
- Location
- Atlantic Coast
Some churches may be boring and off topic unfortunately. Churches are filled with flawed people just like we are flawed. But in most churches you will find very good well-meaning people. Many are even reaching out to help their communities outside the church.
Typically Church is not about what you can get for yourself, nor is it about entertaining you.
It's about Loving others, helping others, and fellowshipping with others.
Lara
Friend of the Arts
- Location
- Atlantic Coast
It wasn't Christians either. It was al-Qaeda, an Islamist extremist group
David777
Well-known Member
- Location
- Silicon Valley
I went to a joyful 7am mass this Easter morning and now as our sun is setting on this 2026 celebrated day of the Son, I'll offer a bit more from the document noted above. As I've related before as far as I am aware, there is no one whispering into my ear on any of these speculations.
===================================================
What do we actually know about God from The Bible?
===================================================
What do we actually know about God from The Bible?
- That he told Moses his name is something that in Hebrew meant I-AM-I-AM. That he has a face and thus, is an entity with a body though such may not be organic like humans nor have a form like us. That he communicates with words, ideas, and thought with great wisdom and intelligence far beyond our own. That he has a very moral nature that is good and dislikes sin and evil. That he gave Moses some basic rules for we humans to live by and later through Moses expanded on those laws. That in those ancient days, he greatly hated some of the practices of humans especially sexual behaviors, hurting, and killing others, so has tried to help us change.
- That he is the one and ONLY god in existence. That he and his angels have a policy of remaining invisible, unprovable, so as not to influence us with certainty much like was the case during the Old Testament between centuries of King Solomon and Jesus when Jewish priest sects went far astray without being corrected. That he made a plan for the Israelites to become good examples for other peoples in order to change the world but was greatly disappointed in how they repeatedly behaved.
- From what I have read in the Bible, my take on numbers of interpretations is quite radical compared to mainstream scholars and religious denominations. There is much that no others seem to address as though it is religiously incorrect to even mention such speculations. And that is a reason I’m taking this public as there are other people that think about some of these same things that eventually lacking reasonable explanation can lead to their separation from God. Thus, am speaking mostly to those who have either lost their faith or have one foot solidly in sin with the other in a hopeful Heaven, yet still have an open ear towards new ways of thinking about God, religion, and The Bible. And am not talking to hopeless hard-core atheists with immoral attitudes and behaviors.
- Well, I’ll continue some speculation without meaning I tend to personally believe in any of them. Maybe an immensely powerful entity but not all powerful that I term a UIE? Maybe not everywhere but rather always localized or an immense distributed machine? Maybe not eternal but rather unimaginably ancient? Maybe not all knowing while knowing vastly more than we can even imagine? Maybe not all benevolent accordingly to our human moral sense but merely mostly so? I doubt our human ideas of morality and ethics fully square with that of a UIE level entity. Maybe his thinking has changed over time though during the existence of us concerning us, maybe unchanging maybe not? Does that in fact matter especially since IMO that is illogical? Maybe he didn’t really create all our universe but rather exists within it?
- Maybe God didn’t create matter energy in some form that already existed but rather what we find as fine tuned now within our Big Bang universe that is localized within the infinite. Maybe God didn’t create the universe but created DNA life within it? Maybe he isn’t the only god or UIE but rather the only one within our space time? Maybe God has limitations of traveling through distances of space per the speed of light? Maybe God and his angels are not aware of every thought all of us make throughout our lifetimes or maybe just some of our external actions? Maybe God is so distant in Heaven with the speed of light a true limitation in the Universe, that he can only affect us through earth local angels or machines and the Holy Spirit with some level of powers left here on Earth?
- And because of that distance if he returned to say a distant Heaven, may not even be aware of what has since occurred beyond a generation of Christ’s time? And that may be why God handed the baton to Moses and then Joshua and then Jesus handed it to Peter, and the Bible reads like it was not corrected because we humans now own it however that turns out? After some thousands of years resident on Earth, frustrated by trying to help and guide we Earth creatures, it ought not be surprisingly that he might have eventually left back to Heaven after one last final plan that was Jesus Christ his son. His only organic son Earth monkeys crucified.
- One theme that I repeat through much of the below is that God; for the most part seems to have allowed humans to write whatever they wanted about him without him doing much of anything to correct whatever. Even much dogma that has been strongly accepted over millennia. As though it is up to we humans to solely do so. That is not to say he has never done so at least at times with the Holy Spirit or won’t do so in the future. And likewise, he is not whispering regularly in the ears of our most revered least sinful religious people regardless of how much some or those people want to argue he is.
- It must be very annoying to him and angels that religious authorities with power have so dominated the narratives strangling the life out of what ordinary people might consider on their own. But now given world wide access to information, much is out in the open including centuries of writings by scholars so they cannot hide any longer as their followers wither away. And let me be clear that by far, most within the ranks of priests and preachers are well meaning, moral, helpful, sincere people doing much positive good, being swept along by forces far beyond their own influences that would banish and excommunicate them otherwise. And I expect God understands all this and those good well-meaning people receive His ultimate gift of salvation and eternal life.
- Life evolved on planet Earth over 4.6 billion years ago ending in the recent rise of apes into homo sapiens. I’ll suggest God was more interested in our species than any other life and so has become more involved with us than others, like a grasshopper, a fish, or a deer, because we are the first and only species that can communicate with He the creator with his auditory Word. That is why below I speculate he made Adam from ordinary humans. It also leads to the probability that Heaven is a world with an atmosphere where audio communications are possible and that God and angels have audio senses.
- For thousands of years, he let us live however while studying us but then when populations increased to the levels of early civilizations, he became very troubled with our immoral behaviors, especially with killing, wars, depraved sexuality, slavery, and ways we hurtfully treated others. Although he didn’t seem to want to become more involved, he did so because of cries from those afflicted by evil others. Interestingly, that is exactly how Moses wrote per below. In other words, God did not intervene until years and generations had passed. His strategy to help us has changed over time as his early attempts didn’t work out while showing he has given humans plenty of chances to work things out on our own.
- Exodus 3:7 The LORD said, I have indeed seen the affliction of My people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their oppressors, and I am aware of their sufferings. The LORD said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt.
- Finally, short of destroying all of us and starting over with some other evolving sentient creature, he sent a very close entity, spiritual like himself, into the body of an actual human that became his son Jesus. Since during Moses times, humans have not accepted him easily as a powerful god, so he allowed Jesus to present a softer more human understanding entity to do so and become judge as someone that understood us from our own level, over the rest of us versus doing so himself as an entity so high beyond us that we creatures are too flawed to ever be acceptable.
- And through Jesus he offered the greatest imaginable gift to an organic sentient mortal creature possible, eternal immortal life in paradise. If individual humans in turn do not accept that gift then they have accepted their own certain eternal destruction and demise of non-existence. As though it was time for God to move onto his other worlds, while leaving behind a structure to help us with Jesus leading that in Heaven while the Holy Spirit remains local.
- John 14:2 (Jesus) My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.
- When one reads analysis of scholars, there is an enormous amount of speculation involved and differences to the extent, the notion of the Bible as inerrant, is nonsense. The worst is likely speculation about angels in the Book of Enoch. Of course, for centuries only priests were allowed to create and possess Bibles that speaks greatly to their awareness information was to be filtered before presentation to common people.
- Thus over centuries, mass was in Latin that common people could not understand much less read until the Reformation in the 1500s with the release of clandestine Tyndall’s printed Bible authorities made great efforts to suppress. Another issue is Jesus had to understand limitations of the Old Testament, but apparently wisely did not publicly relate such possibly because doing so would have been especially condemned by religious authorities and masses of Jews. Accordingly, despite the often quoted verse in Mathew’s gospel, such in no way confirms Jesus considered the OT to be inerrant.
- I’ll also speculate that Jesus expected to return within the generation he left, however after he was resurrected, discussion with God, Michael, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Gabriel, and others decided to let the church Jesus started to play out without intervention that again God probably always preferred to avoid. And that began to show with the conversion of Saul to become Saint Paul, the evangelist for gentiles. As though the core Christians led by Peter were doing better than expected so plans that were never set in stone, changed.
- More importantly if his church was to last, it would need written documents beyond what was possible from the 12 little educated Apostles and thus Saul a religiously educated Jew, fluent in Greek writings and advanced ideas, was chosen for that task. By choosing Saul, that also eliminated the most threatening force to early Christians, two birds with one stone.
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Even aside from their absurd suggestion that you compromise your marriage and sneak off to a religious service and then lie about it, I think they stepped way out of bounds by invading your home (your yard is part of your home) completely uninvited and pushing their religion on you. This is true no matter what the religion was. You should have picked up your phone and called the police, telling them that you have two women for them to arrest for trespassing. Since they were encouraging you to lie, you could have made a fake call, but I think you'd be justified in making a real one. But the answer you did give them was a very good one. Maybe you even "inspired" them to do a little thinking, themselves.