I got a question

[crewgirl]

Charles, I think the term painfully arrogant is better applied to you. I believe because something inside of me tells me that it is right. I could be wrong. We could all simply be organic matter and there is no here-after. When having religious discussions I try to avoid telling people who have other views that they are wrong, in fact I try to avoid being critical in any way. If asked about my views, I share them, but I avoid trying to "convert" others. I'm not arrogant enough to attempt and prove someone wrong because they believe that their God resides in a beautiful rock they picked up. If that person wants to believe as such, I let them, I might even comment on the beauty of the rock.

Save your glucose and oxygen when it comes to a religious discussion with me. You won't convince me there isn't a God.

 

[jponder]

Crew Girl, i have a question but first i must ask you if you have met both Charles and i and if you have read this whole thread?

 

[Powerstroke Racer]

One thing I find interesting is believers are calm and non argumentative about what they believe where the non believer verbally abuses the believers.

Don't worry though Charles, I still love you and respect your knowledge.

 

[crewgirl]

Uncle Ponder, I have never met Charles. I have not read the whole thread, I made it through about 2 pages before I got a headache.

 

[Powerstroke Racer]

Uncle Ponder, I have never met Charles. I have not read the whole thread, I made it through about 2 pages before I got a headache.

Charles is one of the most intelligent and well versed individuals that I have ever met, unfortunately all the extra grey matter hinders him from seeing the simple things in life.

If you are ever really bored just tell him torque rules the universe hence the ability of the earth to rotate:doh:

 

[bmarlatt]

This is the first time I've ever looked at the Diesels for Christ link and I wish I would've found it sooner.

I just want to ask a couple questions?
1. Why don't God and science mix. Is it not likely that science is doing nothing more than discoving how God made the world?

2. Who was Jesus? Many people say he was a great man or prophet. There is one problem with that, he said he was the Son of God. So that would leave you with one of three options. A) he's God, B) he was a lying, or C) he was crazy. So you have the choice of he should be worshiped or ignored.

Just something to think about.

 

[Dalpilot]

I have stayed out of this "discussion" forever, but here is my 2 cents, and I am gonna walk away. "Religion", not the belief in something bigger than you are, but "Organized religion" has done far more damage throughout history, right up until the very second you read this and beyond, than good. The world is full of hypocrits, who defy their "teachings" yet preach them as the genuine word. I think Jimmy Buffet said it best. "There is a fine line between saturday night, and sunday morning" My beliefs, well they are mine, and I will not preach them, nor share them. That's why their mine. Will I find Paradise? In my beliefs, I already have. If it gets better, that is just icing on the cake! Don't pray for me, its not your job! I applaud each of you for having a discussion, being forthright, and open. Maybe your all correct!

 

[Lucky Jeff]

"Religion", not the belief in something bigger than you are, but "Organized religion" has done far more damage throughout history, right up until the very second you read this and beyond, than good.

Agreed!

One thing I find interesting is believers are calm and non argumentative about what they believe where the non believer verbally abuses the believers.

Not all act like Charles. You should know his need to be cocky blurs his ability to be reasonable when talking to others. But I am not exactly fighting the fact one way or the other like he is. I don't know for sure, so I can't say for sure.

I didn't ever stir stuff up in here because this is an area designed for those who obviously believe. Charles' ability to comprehend that is lacking.

And yes Charles, I believe in Santa :shake:

 

[Santa Gertrudis]

I just want to say something about this thread, then I'm out.

It really impresses me that you all can have a civil conversation about something that can be sooooo controversial. Someone in one of my history classes in high school tried to bring up something similar to Ponder, and ended up getting kicked out of class for it before he could even say much more than "Well what about this...?". I never understood that, and always thought it was VERY immature of the teacher to take such an action. It would have made a great discussion, and there is no reason why it shouldn't have. What would we all be without differing opinions?

Anyway, long story short, I really respect you guys (and gals) for keeping this civil, and mature! Nice to see for once.

:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

 

[bmarlatt]

I have stayed out of this "discussion" forever, but here is my 2 cents, and I am gonna walk away. "Religion", not the belief in something bigger than you are, but "Organized religion" has done far more damage throughout history, right up until the very second you read this and beyond, than good. The world is full of hypocrits, who defy their "teachings" yet preach them as the genuine word. I think Jimmy Buffet said it best. "There is a fine line between saturday night, and sunday morning" My beliefs, well they are mine, and I will not preach them, nor share them. That's why their mine. Will I find Paradise? In my beliefs, I already have. If it gets better, that is just icing on the cake! Don't pray for me, its not your job! I applaud each of you for having a discussion, being forthright, and open. Maybe your all correct!

Being a believer in college this is one I hear almost as soon as someone finds out what I believe. That is the entire idea of Christianity... nobody is perfect all we can do is spread the word of the only man who ever was (and they hung him on a tree). If everyone was perfect then we would have no need for any of this conversation. But since we all have our problems but continue to spread the word does that make us hypocrites? It only makes us forgiven...

 

[Sledpuller]

Lott touched on the real question.. does God use Horsepower or Torque to spin the earth?

My belief is God would be a Diesel truck person, Cummins in fact, and a sled puller, as thats what trucks are meant to do, therefore, vast amounts of Torque rule the planet turning department.:welcome:

 

[Charles]

I have been in sticky situations where I felt like there is something or someone with me or helping me get through. Can't explain just felt it.

I have felt this so I beleive.

Would be safe to say that you have never attempted to "find God"

I tried everything in my POWER to reconcile the reality of the world I live in with the stories written in the bible. After years of feeling bad all the time for knowing many of them are simply untrue and not being able to figure out why I couldn't figure out why, I just let it go, and realized that me feeling bad about it is never going to make the story of Adam and Eve true, nor plausible even. And it's never going to make the birds, trees, water or anything else have just popped into existence from thin air when first of all, that's ridiculous, and second of all, we understand how things evolve over time, and we have more evidence to support that understanding than we do for something as widely excepted as the theory of gravity... On a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being an educated guess and 10 being absolute truth the theory of evolution ranks a 9.

I tried and tried to figure out how these things work together, but the truth is, some of the fundamental things in the bible are simply wrong. I'm sorry about it, I wish I could change it, but then that in itself is the whole problem in a nut shell. Nobody can change it. If you can't amend something in light of new evidence, then it will only be correct as long as nothing ever changes, and current understanding never expands. Assuming either of those two things will never happen is incredibly naive, and arrogant. The same qualities which allow people to read a book of stories and have the nerve to tell someone else they're going to spend eternity burning in torturous hell because they don't subscribe to the same book club, because they're too naive to see that they have been duped, and too arrogant to even entertain the idea that with millions and millions of people fully believing them to be the ones in error that all those people might not be the dumbest people on the planet simply in need of accepting their way of life before they can also "believe" and be as good a person as them.....

Religious people can see thousands of competing religions all sharing the concepts that their God(s) are the true God(s) and that anyone not following their prescription for being a good person will suffer and never reach heaven, or paradise, karma, oneness..... call it whatever you want. You throw darts at a wall covered in words describing bliss and you'll likely land on a word describing some religion's notion of heaven. But the thing is religious people can see all these other people practicing all these opposing religions and yet they can't even FATHOM the idea that they might be practicing the wrong one.

It's like they think they're the only ones that say you'll burn in hell if you don't believe in what we believe in. It's like they have some kind of mental block, and can't understand that the other religions say the same about them.

:doh:


Another thing that should trouble these people is the manner in which they came to follow the religion they follow in the first place. It's almost always purely a geographical situation. If they had been born in Afghanistan they'd be Islamic.... They think the fact that they were born in the US and then became Christian is a miracle??? The statistical chance of becoming a muslim being born and living in the US is about as great as becoming a Christian being born and living in Afgan....

There's nothing magical about it. These people follow the same religion their parents did, and their children follow it because they did, and their children's children..... so on and so forth. It's a wonderful mechanism for member retention. But it's not miraculous. You tell people they will burn in a hell for all of eternity if they leave, after telling them all about that from the time were born each and every week, and hell, you could make people shop at Fry's electronics even when TV's were half price across the street. I mean, with a switching cost like that, it's no miracle that people don't stray, lol. Imagine if you'd burn in hell if you switched cell phone providers?

Anyway....

I tried to figure out how to make this crap plausible. I thought long and hard about it. Hell, I even prayed about it, and I'm not one for praying, not because I don't think prayer could possibly be real.... but because if it is.... then I don't see where it's very RESPECTFUL to pray for every little thing that comes along. In fact, I find that very DISRESPECTFUL, even though at this point in my life have to doubt if there's anyone listening anyway.

But point is, I was bound up with it enough to pray not that I be given the answer, as I thought even that would be disrespectful, but just that before I die, I be allowed clarity on the subject. I told God that my mind would never be capable of accepting something that made no sense. I said I imagine that your word has been hopelessly corrupted by man, and that must be the reason it no longer holds validity. Man screwed up the details by interpretation, purposeful manipulation and if for no other reason, than in the simple passing down of the message through so much time. That alone will absolutely destroy a message. I sent these issues out to him in great detail, was 100% honest and as I said, simply asked that if it fit in to his divine plan... and wouldn't mess it up in any way, that he allow me to understand this before my time was up, as I wanted nothing more than to be able to say "I believe" but with what we have to work with on this earth, I can't honestly say that, and I'm not going to lie.


It's just a fact of life that no matter how much effort and energy you put into proving something, if it's not actually true, you can NEVER prove it, nor reconcile it with reality.

And therein lies the reason I cannot ever truly believe in the stories you think I should, and that I wish I could...

And therein also lies the point the OP has been making. If you want to have someone truly believe in those stories, then you had better shield them from knowledge beyond a certain point, else you will DESTROY their ability to do so. PERMANENTLY.

This is all covered in the story of Adam and Eve no less. Why were they cast out of the garden of Eden in the first place? Because they took from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The tree of KNOWLEDGE. The devil was hiding up inside the tree of KNOWLEDGE.

The bible made it very clear from the beginning that knowledge is the Devil. And for DAMN good reason as I think I've made abundantly clear. The men who wrote it knew that anyone who gained too much knowledge would be unable to accept the story, and unable to blissfully believe as seems to be very easy for so many.

It's a raw deal, but unfortunately, I'm afraid I took from that tree myself. And in so doing, there's no way for me to enter a place like that in earnest.

 

[zstroken]

When your 6 year old tells you they read a scary book, and prayed to god they wouldn't have a nightmare, and that God answered their prayer because they didn't have a nightmare, what do you do? How about at dinner they pray every evening for a friend's grandbaby that is in intensive care and the 4 and 6 year olds both pray for the baby?

To be the arguementitve person that I am. How do you know the scientists aren't part of a cult that are trying to disprove the adam and eve? I mean look they preached about global cooling, holes in the ozone, then global warming etc. Sounds like the scientists are a lot more wishy washy than christianity. The bible is a book, and has been translated from interpetations. Maybe there are some inconsistencies.

I mean if you believe in evolution, your just believing, you weren't there so how do you know it happened? Some bones have been dug up? Maybe apes were getting more and more human like, and then poof, something happened and killed them off. They got too smart and killed themselves?

 

[Charles]

Charles, I think the term painfully arrogant is better applied to you. I believe because something inside of me tells me that it is right. I could be wrong. We could all simply be organic matter and there is no here-after. When having religious discussions I try to avoid telling people who have other views that they are wrong, in fact I try to avoid being critical in any way. If asked about my views, I share them, but I avoid trying to "convert" others. I'm not arrogant enough to attempt and prove someone wrong because they believe that their God resides in a beautiful rock they picked up. If that person wants to believe as such, I let them, I might even comment on the beauty of the rock.

Save your glucose and oxygen when it comes to a religious discussion with me. You won't convince me there isn't a God.

I never intended to.

Again, I'm not arguing against God. I'm arguing against the childish stories you've been sold since you were young. All I did was explain how muscle tissue works since you were under the impression that the only reason we all don't just lay on the ground motionless was because of "Soul power", when it's clearly because our muscle tissue contracts and relaxes and moves us around.

 

[Charles]

Agreed!




Not all act like Charles. You should know his need to be cocky blurs his ability to be reasonable when talking to others. But I am not exactly fighting the fact one way or the other like he is. I don't know for sure, so I can't say for sure.

I didn't ever stir stuff up in here because this is an area designed for those who obviously believe. Charles' ability to comprehend that is lacking.

And yes Charles, I believe in Santa :shake:

Not so. I did not come into the "Diesels for Christ" forum and start stirring things up. I clicked on a thread titled "I got a question" under "New Posts" and it wasn't until someone mentioned it in the thread that I realized the forum heading this thread was under.

I have been discussing the topic that the OP posed. I didn't pose it, and I didn't decide where it would be placed. The OP did.

 

[Dalpilot]

Being a believer in college this is one I hear almost as soon as someone finds out what I believe. That is the entire idea of Christianity... nobody is perfect all we can do is spread the word of the only man who ever was (and they hung him on a tree). If everyone was perfect then we would have no need for any of this conversation. But since we all have our problems but continue to spread the word does that make us hypocrites? It only makes us forgiven...

Negative, I did not lump you in as a hypocrite, nor was that my intention. If you took it that way accept my apologies. My point has nothing to do with perfection, it has to do with SOME/Many folks using "Religion" to make themselves look or feel better than they are.

Take for example the young black man, (Its not racist, he was black), i read about in the newspaper, that had attended church with his family Sunday morning but had slaughtered his brother, his brothers wife, her friend, and then killed the 8 year old with a golf club, the 2 year old with a sawzall, and stabbed the 11 year old 23 times but who happened to live. When he was caught he proclaimed Jesus would save him! :umno:

The couple who attends church every Sunday dressed to the hilt, but every Saturday night goes to the swingers bar to pick up someone new for their spouse to "try on". The other 6 days a week, they preach about "God" and doing the right thing, all while doing "Something".

Again, it has nothing to do with right and wrong, but the blatant disregard for what is truly right and wrong, while preaching the word of God. If there is a God, I am pretty sure he can see through it if I can.

IMHO opinion, forgiveness would not be given because it is asked, it is given when one is truly sorry for ones actions, and repents to at least try and change whatever needed forgiving. The world would be a far better place if everyone would stop "promoting" the word of whatever God they believe in, and start actually living it themselves.

I cannot quote a single scripture verse, but I have read the bible, and I know its contents, and that it was written by men with an agenda to push no different than many other political books. IMHO the message that should be taken away is try to be a good person, try to make yourself better, and try to love your fellow man as you love yourself.

just my .02.

 

[Charles]

When your 6 year old tells you they read a scary book, and prayed to god they wouldn't have a nightmare, and that God answered their prayer because they didn't have a nightmare, what do you do? How about at dinner they pray every evening for a friend's grandbaby that is in intensive care and the 4 and 6 year olds both pray for the baby?

I say talk to your mother. She handles the metaphysics department around here. Aside from that.... I have no idea the extent to which I might be able to lie to my own children for reasons of religion. That's going to be a hard one.

To be the arguementitve person that I am. How do you know the scientists aren't part of a cult that are trying to disprove the adam and eve?

And herein lies the beauty....

You do NOT have to take their word. See that? Science does NOT ask that you "believe" anything. Feel free to go take the measurements, and make the observations YOURSELF, and never crack open a single science book. If you're rational, and meticulous in your study you will come to the same conclusions. Or, you'll produce slightly different explanations for the observations you note, and we can DEBATE which is best.

It's a wonderful thing. There's no faith involved. You can feel free to go observe, test and verify all of it, and you're encouraged to do so. Have you never taken a science lab? That's the beauty. Nobody is telling you things and then saying, you'll just have to trust me, they are giving you the tools to observe and test your own world. Feel free to prove everything to yourself any time you like.

I mean look they preached about global cooling, holes in the ozone, then global warming etc. Sounds like the scientists are a lot more wishy washy than christianity.

If you go look at records of the average temperature of the earth studied from ice core samples hundreds of years old you will see that the average temperature goes through massive swings on a somewhat consistent basis. Ever heard of ice ages? We have plenty of them to study in such samples. When they began the degree to which the temperature sank, and the length of the period it all occurred in.

Now, there is nothing of the sort happening now IMO. IMO we are on the tip of a little blip in the midst of an ice age. If you'll notice, every ice age we have records of has included a little blip of warmth a after it begins that usually lasts for a few thousand years. Studying records to date, we should be in the middle of one of those. If anything I forsee the temperature to drop in time. Although you have to understand the timeframe I'm talking about is hundreds and hundreds of years, nothing to concern either you or me.

So just because people operate under the scientific method, it does not mean they aren't wrong, and often.

Yet again, that's a beautiful thing. Science is willing to realize it could be in error, and likely will be, and because of this, change to accommodate new evidence. So compared to the story of little red riding hood, yes, science is very, very "wishy washy" in the fact that it does in fact change to reflect evidence.

The bible closed it's doors and cut out the chance of encountering any "cooks" to write in it and have to be edited out. Science did not. So you will see plenty of incorrect assertions being put forth continually. Although it's that same willingness to hear new explanation the lends science the ability to make use of new information and provide us with accurate explanations for the workings of our world.

The bible is a book, and has been translated from interpetations. Maybe there are some inconsistencies.

I mean if you believe in evolution, your just believing, you weren't there so how do you know it happened? Some bones have been dug up? Maybe apes were getting more and more human like, and then poof, something happened and killed them off. They got too smart and killed themselves?

You don't understand evolution. Which is actually a given, because if you did, you wouldn't have any choice but to realize it's correct.


No, apes didn't poof and disappear.... You just said apes were getting more human like. So what makes you think that slow progression would ever stop? The only explanation that requires things to "poof" is creationism, where everything went "poof" and just was.

And I AM HERE NOW! You act as if evolution was some kind of event and now it's over, lol. It's a continual thing, and it's never-ending.

Perfect example....

I don't have to remove my rear molars and have them chiseled out. Why? Because I don't have any teeth to come in getting in the way. On X-rays they simply aren't there. Now why did humans ever have teeth to come in and get in the way, pushing other teeth all out-of-whack and messing up your mouth in the first place? Because when humans were living off the land, no hygiene, no dentistry, so on and so forth, by that time you would have had lots of cavities, and had your teeth rotting out of your head. Hell, the mean lifespan for a human was probably 30 years old. Well, if a guy lost his teeth, and had old rotting molars hanging out back there he wouldn't be able to eat. He would starve. Well, a dead guy can't have very much sex now can he? If you can't have sex, then you can't have children. If you can't have children you can't pass on your genes to your offspring. If you can't pass them on, then they die...

Now imagine instead, a guy that about this same time has molars start coming in, pushing the cavity-filled teeth out of the way. Now this guy has a fresh set of teeth to last him the rest of his life. He can eat, have sex and pass on his genes to the next generation, who will do the same, so on and so forth.

Well.... I am proof of evolution in the fact that I don't have them. The specific genetic combination that occurred between my mother's egg and my father's sperm produced a strand of DNA (my DNA) that does NOT include having these "wisdom teeth" come in.

Now if for instance, something made having them a bad thing. For instance, lets say they would break your jaw trying to crowd into your mouth and kill you, then you would die, and I would live. Since you'd be dead you'd have no more children, or if you're very young when it happens, maybe no children at all. Whereas living on, I would have sex and passing my genes on to the next generation.

Evolution is NO more complex than that. That was evolution and natural selection at work.

As it stands we do have dentists to chisel out molars to give room for wisdom teeth, so there's no real worry of anyone dying and not being able to impregnate any women if they so choose.


But the beauty is, you don't have to take my word, nor anyone elses. Go research it and study it for yourself.

Truth is a wonderful thing.

 

[zstroken]

I didn't read all of your post I just skimmed it. Yes I have done science experiments, I understand they are lab driven. Have you physically touched and seen the bones of all of the evolution?

I am not saying one way or the other what happened. I used to be a firm believer of evolution, maybe I have gotten soft, but there have been several life changing events in my life, and maybe it was just fate, the way they turned out, maybe it was a greater being. At this point in my life I am leaning towards the latter.

Where my problem is with your dig is majority of folks aren't going to challenge the scientific findings, as they don't have the means or the desire. Much like your arguement, they just take what is being spoon fed to them by the scientists.

Have you been on a dig? Do you know that the bones are genuine? How do you know that the scientist don't have their own little cult, and basically saying "you need to go along with this evolution gig, if not you won't be getting any more money and will have to get a real job."

Same goes for "global climate change". We have already seen that the global cooling thing didn't pan out, humans tried to interput data, and predict, well guess what, we aren't as smart as we think.

As far as the poof? What happened to the dinosaurs? Wasn't that kind of a poof? How do we know that the scientist have already found that there was a poof, and they aren't telling it as part of their little cult?

This is soley being arguementitive on the matter.

 

[Charles]

I didn't read all of your post I just skimmed it. Yes I have done science experiments, I understand they are lab driven. Have you physically touched and seen the bones of all of the evolution?

I am not saying one way or the other what happened. I used to be a firm believer of evolution, maybe I have gotten soft, but there have been several life changing events in my life, and maybe it was just fate, the way they turned out, maybe it was a greater being. At this point in my life I am leaning towards the latter.

Where my problem is with your dig is majority of folks aren't going to challenge the scientific findings, as they don't have the means or the desire. Much like your arguement, they just take what is being spoon fed to them by the scientists.

Have you been on a dig? Do you know that the bones are genuine? How do you know that the scientist don't have their own little cult, and basically saying "you need to go along with this evolution gig, if not you won't be getting any more money and will have to get a real job."

Same goes for "global climate change". We have already seen that the global cooling thing didn't pan out, humans tried to interput data, and predict, well guess what, we aren't as smart as we think.

As far as the poof? What happened to the dinosaurs? Wasn't that kind of a poof? How do we know that the scientist have already found that there was a poof, and they aren't telling it as part of their little cult?

This is soley being arguementitive on the matter.

You're trying to turn the scientific method back toward the jerry-springer "he said, she said" stuff that the bible is based on.

It doesn't work that way.


Ever watch CSI? Right now you're the cop that's always talking to the suspects trying to play the, are they lying to me, I know when you're lying and all that....

I'm Gill Grissom, the guy completly uninterested in what bs anybody has to spew, and only looking at the actual evidence itself.

Given the millions of intelligent people who can, have and will continue to view scientific data, reveiw it, study it, test it, observe it and verify it, for all those people to be drinking the same Koolaid would be one hell of a conspiracy theory.

And as I said, I'm not interested in any he said, she said bs.

 

[zstroken]

You're trying to turn the scientific method back toward the jerry-springer "he said, she said" stuff that the bible is based on.

It doesn't work that way.


Ever watch CSI? Right now you're the cop that's always talking to the suspects trying to play the, are they lying to me, I know when you're lying and all that....

I'm Gill Grissom, the guy completly uninterested in what bs anybody has to spew, and only looking at the actual evidence itself.

Given the millions of intelligent people who can, have and will continue to view scientific data, reveiw it, study it, test it, observe it and verify it, for all those people to be drinking the same Koolaid would be one hell of a conspiracy theory.

And as I said, I'm not interested in any he said, she said bs.

I didn't realize there are millions of folks that were doing archeoligical digs and finding bones. I would probably go with 10 of thousands, but millions? Aren't you exxagerating a bit?

I am not doing the he said she said. I am just playing the arguement.

Please tell me how do you know the archeologists are feeding you factual information? Have you had the bones in your hand that progress through the evolution? Have you even held 75% of them? 50% of them?

Aren't there more people that believe in god than there are scientists?

I mean you just were argueing that more people that support it must mean it is right, or maybe it is just a larger conspiracy theory.

I am a simpleton, I don't spend my free time reading books, I catch bits and pieces of articles and scientific study.