Bans.... a certain guild.....

[warder]

you can't say who is and who isn't an antoganist in the bible because it's not a fictional story. its a biography

[Entropy]

The concept of antagonism is not incompatible with the true story paradigm.

[Clawshrimp]

I apologize to everyone, this was never meant to be anything serious, i merely thought that the name "satanic squadran" was offensive, Entropy has made his own thoughts on this subject clear, as has everyone else, I am not going to try and convince Entropy to ban the guild.

 

Again, I apologize to everyone who might have gotten upset or untowards feelings from this thread.

 

Perhaps some day I will start a religous disscussion on these forums (with entropys permission) and you can all get on and post your opinions and we can have a indepth disscussion, but not today or even soon, I dont want to be responsible for starting a flame war.

[Tropicano]

O M G i just read all of this - i got myself a good laugh.

[Killerlamb]

The concept of antagonism is not incompatible with the true story paradigm.

 

Like that damn movie that I saw about Gacy. That movie was so frikin' stupid. (He was the antagonist)

[Ak1]

ok, i did not realize there would be so many responses, first off, it was not lucifers thirst for power that led to his fall, it was his envy of gods creation of humans (basically he got jealous of humans), and yes, satanism (in its true meaning) should be taken as offensive to any christian, but i am not here to preach on religion, or try and convert anyone, or try and convince Entropy to ban the guild, i merely thought to bring the guilds name to attention.

 

aka you want to be an attention whore?

[Killerlamb]

Oh my god! Ak1. Holy fuck! He even made a funny. That was a bad burn, but still it is fun to laugh AT his attempt.

[Clawshrimp]

aka you want to be an attention whore?

 

Sorry you feel that way about me, that was not my intent, my intent was to bring to the attention of entropy a possible offensive name, nothing more.

[ShadowKnight]

That is in no way offensive. Even if you are religious you should be able to distinguish between fantasy and reality. If not, then just PK them (even though that would probably make you evil).

[xavier1]

What's the worst thing about being an atheist?

You have no one to talk to when you're getting a great blow job.

 

 

OH.............. GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!! :lol:

[Killerlamb]

Yes...I see...

[Guest troy]

oh you silly christians and your jihads

 

 

{ worshiping the earth is the way to go }

i am a unitarian universilist!

[MasterXan]

You guys are way off. Satan shouldn't be offensive to Christians, who are taught to love your enemy. Satan wasn't the most powerful angel, Christ was (Christ did overcome Satan and all his minions when on earth, sounds like he was more powerful to me. In addition, Satan, then Lucifer, lost the war in the pre-existance, proving he wasn't as powerful)

 

Ent (and other people) you can't lump all Christians into the same group. Not all believe the same things. The are "Christians" because they beliefe in Christ, not because they all believe the same things. I know you can't be saved no matter what you do as long as you believe in Christ. As a Mormon, I know that you have to repent truely of your sins, and only Christ can tell who is truely repentant and who isn't, so don't try and judge.

 

Killerlamb, you are the worst person to talk with about religion because you just insult everybody you can. I will ignore all your comments.

 

No religion, no matter how different or "wrong" we might see it as being, should be deemed offensive. Although, the actions of many individual people and the teachings of some religions end up injuring/hurting/killing people, and those people/groups of people should be respected as people, but watched closely to insure they don't hurt/kill others.

 

Satan became evil before humans had been created. He was not jealous of us. He is now, because we have physical bodies and he doesn't, which is one reason why he tries to bring us down.

 

This has gotten really off topic, hasn't it?

[Grum]

The thread that would never die...

 

Not all [Christians] believe the same things.

With that I agree...

 

I know you can't be saved no matter what you do as long as you believe in Christ. As a Mormon, I know that you have to repent truely of your sins, and only Christ can tell who is truely repentant and who isn't, so don't try and judge.

First of all, I'm assuming that you missed a "don't" in the first sentence above. If you really mean what you wrote there, then disregard the rest of this post

 

I think you are misusing the word "know" here. You don't "know" this, since you have no proof of it. Most likely, you don't even have evidence for the correctness of these statements. The only reason you believe it, is because the people around you, the ones who have taught you, believe it.

 

No religion, no matter how different or "wrong" we might see it as being, should be deemed offensive.

I beg to differ. A (fictitious) religion that preaches the killing and eating of every third child in a family is offensive. I don't see why the teachings of a religion cannot be measured with the same standards as we use for ideas of individual persons.

 

Satan became evil before humans had been created.

Satan, being a human invention, was only created after humans were created.

 

This has gotten really off topic, hasn't it?

And here we agree again.

[sam3773]

I am the root of all evil!!

 

Whos the real victim here? God or Lucifer?

I say Lucifer is the victim and God is teh evil!

Think about it, lemme put it into "Frankenstien" turms for the children...

Dr. Frankenstein (god) Tried to make a thing of beauty (Lucifer) but it turned evil because it felt trapped, it was born into a cage of rules, it wanted to be free, so i say God is the evil one.

[MasterXan]

Satan himself wasn't created by humans. I'm not sure where he got the name 'Satan', but Lucifer was created by God, as we all were. He (Lucifer) didn't want man to have free agency, so God sent Christ to Earth to represent Him instead of Lucifer, which made Lucifer mad... big war... 1/3rd the people God created were banished with Lucifer... Lucifer never got a physical body... Adam and Eve were placed on Earth, etc etc.

 

Well, killing and eating every third child is surely disgusting, but only offensive in my mind if the (fictitious) group actually plans to carry it out. Well, ok, so even thinks about carrying it out. Ok ok, so it's just generally offensive...

 

As for the 'knowing' thing, I do know. I'm one of four Mormons in my school, so not even close to everybody around me believes as I do. I was taught this way, but have since gained my own testimony. Yeah, that's hard to explain, how you get a testimony. Suffice it to say, there is no doubt in my mind. I have questioned my beliefs before with rational thought and always found them to be correct.

 

There are two ways to get 'proof'. One, die and find out. In the event that isn't very appealing, then gain a testimony. Since that tends to be a long and involved process, try some minor hints that won't prove, but will suggest some kind of God and such to exist.

 

First, I find it unlikely that under Darwin's theory sensory organs and complex tissues could have ever developed. The number of mutations necessary to evolve a working circulatory system or a brain would number in the millions, and until all of them have happened it wouldn't help the creature survive any better. As for Mormon beliefs, several top notch linguists have studied the Book of Mormon and found it couldn't have been written by Joseph Smith alone, too many different writing styles. Historians once believed Europeans brought the horse to the Americas, but the BoM mentions horses. Recently, new findings (a horse in a tar pit predating the Spanish by over a century --can't remember the exact years, sorry-- a child's doll closely resembling a horse, etc) have proven horses were, at some point, here before Europeans and somehow wiped out. There are other such scientific proofs, but none of them will completely prove the BoM, Mormon beliefs, or any other religion, to be true. Otherwise, we would all know and this wouldn't be a test, but more like a study period. (wow, this got REALLY long, didn't it?)

[Grum]

Satan himself wasn't created by humans. I'm not sure where he got the name 'Satan', but Lucifer was created by God, as we all were. He (Lucifer) didn't want man to have free agency, so God sent Christ to Earth to represent Him instead of Lucifer, which made Lucifer mad... big war... 1/3rd the people God created were banished with Lucifer... Lucifer never got a physical body... Adam and Eve were placed on Earth, etc etc.

Etc. Please, do you have proof, or even evidence of any of this? Let's say I write a book, and I call it the Book of the Pink Unicorn. The Pink Unicorn created the Earth by stamping out a pebble from her holy hoofs, man was created by the Pink Unicorn from a tiny droplet of her spit, bladiebladiebla...and the Pink Unicorn has particular disliking for Christians and they will after their death never lie in the presence of her Holy Hoofs. Let's say I get a crowd of a couple of million people to follow this book. Now how do I found out whether I should follow the Pink Unicorn, or Christ?

As for the 'knowing' thing, I do know.

If you know a fact, it means that the fact is objectively verifiable. In that case, it must be possible to explain how you reached your conclusion.

There are two ways to get 'proof'. One, die and find out. In the event that isn't very appealing, then gain a testimony. Since that tends to be a long and involved process, try some minor hints that won't prove, but will suggest some kind of God and such to exist.

Okay, so you address that point here, and in the part below. You're right about death being a less appealling option, especially since I strongly suspect that there is no me after death, and hence there is no me to know anything. About Darwin: you're approaching the problem from the wrong end. It's not like evolution was working to create a human as we see it today. Instead, evolution just works it way by killing off less successfull branches (in a statistical way, there's still a possibility that an unadapted branch can survive for long periods of time). Your example of the circulatory system and brain shows this misunderstanding. You're assuming that what we have now, and remove one element from that. First of all, removing one element from either of these will not stop them from working. Second, who says that the elements are added one by one, adaptations of other systems occur regularly. Third, better does not necessarily mean more complex, as any programmer will tell you. My knowledge of the history of the Book of Mormon is too limited to make a statement about it, so I'll skip it for now, and do some research later, if and when I'm interested.

 

As for this life being a test: don't you think it's cruel for a God to create a world, put some puppets in them, see what choices they make, and if you don't like the result, throw them into damnation forever?

[iway]

God created satan as an angel. He turned making him the root of all evil (satan). the guild should change their name because some satan worshipers have stole children and then sacrificed them to satan.

 

Not nice

[Slayton]

Heres something I read in a book thatas against aethiest I think it was pretty ..nifty so I'll go ahead and say it...Ill probably screw it up though

If your aethiest you believe the world just happened randomly, there was no great design everything just fell into place perfectly..therefore the world or you was not made with a purpose. Meaning your mind has no purpose and all thoughts you have are just random atoms smashing together to form "thought" So if this is the case (wich it is if you dont believe in a creator) you can NOT trust your ownt thoughts, so you can not use thought to say there is no God. Even though this hasn't been a big part of this discussion..i thought id throw it in there..and im tired its late so i probably screwed that up.

About that pink Unicorn thing, well your just one person who wrote a book. While as the bible is supposedly written by many people over long periods of time..so im just saying id think thats a more credible source then the almighty pink unicorn book

[Grum]

everything just fell into place perfectly

I wouldn't call the current design perfect

 

But you're right about purpose. I don't think there's an intrinsic purpose to life. The only purpose you have in life, is that which you put in yourself. As for the argument against atheism itself, I have two things to say. The first is: although the process that created my brain may have involved random processess, my thoughts themselves are not random. Rather, they draw from observation of the world around me, and if that observation does not fit the thought I have, I adjust the thought. Second, do you prefer to think that there is a god that controls your thoughts? And does that same god control my thoughts? In that case, why don't I believe in him? Is he not interested?

 

Me writing a Pink Unicorn book was merely used as an illustration. You can extend the example anyway you wish, by having generations of sheep herders write a book on her Holy Pinkness. You do raise one important point though: the Bible is supposedly written by many *people* over long periods of time. There's no reason to assume that these people were inerrant.

[MasterXan]

This is gonna be a long one, hold on folks!

I described how Satan came to be Satan, as is the belief of Mormons and is stated in the Book of Mormon (BoM, again). For proof of most of what I believe, look to the BoM. Prove it's right, you prove Mormons are right. Prove it's half right, and you get half of Mormon beliefs proven.

 

This Pink Unicorn written by generations of herders... does it have a history of their people? The Bible and BoM are histories, meaning that the spiritual teachings in them gain credibility when you find out the history behind them actually happened. Most of the Bible has been proven to be at least based on real events, if not accurate depictions. The BoM, having fewer people studying it and since it was only discovered about 160 years ago, is not as proven scientifically. But there is no proof in either which proves it wasn't real. Any book would have to have the same attributes. (course, they would have to be written by prophets of God, and just who is and is not a prophet is highly disputed...)

 

I really don't believe Darwin's theory could have happened on its own. I realize that adaptions would have simply happened without a specific goal, such as eyes, in mind. I also realize that adaptions without survival meaning are worthless, so would not have neccessarily been passed on to future generations. I see the complexity of life, it's many different forms which scientists don't understand, and in it all I can't imagine it being random. While it is statistically possible for a monkey to get 100% on the ACT, I don't think it will ever happen. It's also statistically possible for a whale to mutate and grow feathers, which may help it become faster by negating the need for blubber, but again I can't see it happening.

 

If I know a fact, it doesn't mean it's objectively verifiable. When dealing with feelings, nothing is objectively verifiable. I relate it to knowing if you love somebody... you think about if you do, wonder if it's possible, and at some point you just know whether you do or do not love him/her. When you gain a testimony, it's a bit more dramatic and sudden, but similar in that you will never be able to prove to somebody else, because you learned it through a feeling. The feeling of the Holy Ghost, which is sometimes described as "a burning in the bosom", is how you gain a testimony. You have to experiance it to know what I'm talking about.

 

Your right, a god who put some puppets somewhere and if they did evil then banished them, that would be cruel. So you are a puppet? I'm a puppet? We are more then puppets. We are told what to do and when to do it, the test is whether we do it. If God were to test our loyalty to him, how else would he do it? He would have to remove our previous memories, for anyone who where living with God would obviously believe He exists, would know His power, and would likely follow Him. We get to decide whether we believe in the physical reality or the spiritual.

 

Now the destruction underworld thing. YOU WILL NEVER GO TO THE UNDERWORLD. It isn't possible. There are four places you could go; Heaven, i.e. Celestial Kingdom, where God lives; Terestial Kingdom, where those who were good but didn't follow God go, and the Telestial Kingdom, where murderers, thieves, rapists, etc. go. The forth is Outer Darkness, where Satan and those banished from the pre-existance are. In the BoM it says that there are about five people in the history of mankind on Earth that will go there. Because we chose to follow God's plan and come to Earth, we are almost guarenteed eternal life in a Kingdom. To go to Outer Darkness, you must have talked with God while on Earth, face to face as Moses did, and then you must rebel against him. If you were to talk with God, my guess is you wouldn't try and ruin him. In addition, there is another chance to follow God-- known as the Spirit World, it's were everyone goes after death to await the second coming. You get a chance there to repent and follow Christ. Those alive during the second coming get the millenium to repent and follow Christ. (We are told repentance in this fashon is harder, due to our lack of a body at that point. That is why we should be good now.)

[warder]

i think everyone who is interested in this subject should read John Milton's Paradise Lost.

[Grum]

The Bible and BoM are histories, meaning that the spiritual teachings in them gain credibility when you find out the history behind them actually happened.

Nonsense, if anything at all, other historical events described in the Bible gain more credibility when a historical event in the Bible is shown to have happened. Does the main story line in Gone with the Wind gain more credibility because the Civil War happened? Not to mention the fact that many accounts in the Bible have been shown to be wrong, or at least highly unlikely.

 

course, they would have to be written by prophets of God, and just who is and is not a prophet is highly disputed...

Of course, this God would have to exist first

 

I really don't believe Darwin's theory could have happened on its own.

That doesn't prove that it didn't happen Once again, you're reasoning from the result. Imagine a deck of cards. I shuffle them well, and then deal them to you. Before I give the cards to you, the chance on each possible combination is astronomically small (about 1 in 8*10^67, that's an 8 with 67 zeros). Still, you're not surprised that you got that particular combination.

 

When dealing with feelings, nothing is objectively verifiable. I relate it to knowing if you love somebody...

Your analogy fails. First of all, we're not talking about whether you know that you think that God exists, we're talking about whether a god exists. If I were to follow your analogy, god would be similar to a (personal) feeling. Most religions claim much more for their god, though. Second, it is certainly possible to devise a test to see if you love a person, for instance by removing that person from your life, or just the opposite and bringing that person into your neighbourhood, threaten to hurt that person, etc. and watch your reactions. With a god, such a test is impossible. Third, noone claims that love is an objective emotion, and that everyone should love the same person. There are people that claim that their god is real, however, and that we should all believe in him.

 

We get to decide whether we believe in the physical reality or the spiritual.

Hehe, I'd advise you to believe in a physical reality in any case, whether you believe in a spiritual reality or not. If you don't (believe in a physical reality), this can lead to rather nasty surprises in daily life. Second, you missed the point. We have this god putting us here on earth, giving us a free choice: believe, or be damned forever. That is not a free choice, it's blackmail. And then I didn't even mention the claim that he's all-knowing, so that he knew what we're going to choose before he started this whole experiment. And why would he test our loyalty? Is he so vain, that he wants us to recognise him as the supreme being he allegedly is? Then why does he hide from us?

 

I don't know why you posted that underworld thingy. Personally, I think the most likely option is that there is no more "you" after you've died, so discussing where you'd go seems kind of pointless. First prove that you continue to exist.

 

Anyway, as I've said before, you're welcome to believe whatever you wish. Just don't claim it's fact.

[MasterXan]

Me thinks you read into the love analogy a bit deeper than I intended. And there are many who would argue about whether you could test such a thing (saying after you stop following His commandments, you go through life and at some point notice it isn't as good as it once was... I have no experiance with this, so I don't know about it)

 

If you think about the chances of being delt one specific hand (as you said, 8 X 10^67), then take that number by itself , say, 100 times, you would have the odds of a simple series of mutations of occuring, which series would likely have to occur for some fictitious organ to work properly in its completed form. That's (8 X 10^67)^100. very unlikely, yet somehow most organisms on earth all ended up with similar characteristics. Which means you'd have to multiply that number by the number of organisms with close characteristics (say every species of ant, or monkey, or mammal), of course subtracting those that had those same characteristics before they became different (if all dolphins had eyes before there were multiple species, then obviously all will have eyes after further mutation, unless the mutation is to not have eyes). It's a very, very large number. And it all happened by accident, over not such a long time (granted, billions of years, but comparitively not very long). I would think we would have many more different varieties of organs, senses, and numbers of appendiges. Not just eyes across almost every complex organism on the planet.

 

I do believe in a physical reality, what I meant was we choose to believe only in that reality or also in a spiritual one.

 

I mentioned the underworld thing because you said we either follow God or get damnation for eternity. This is not so. To get damnation forever, we must be in Outer Darkness. The three kingdoms are drastically different from anybodies version of 'damnation'.

 

The point isn't so much for God to know what we will/will not do. He knows. The point is for us to be happy. (big description coming...) If you don't like following all the laws, say you just see no point in not sharing everything, which means you steal a lot. Then after you die, do you want to go somewhere with all the people you stole from? Always knowing they were better than you, always around people who seem, to you, as stuck up snobs? That's why you're not going to the very top of Heaven. You will go where ever your lifestyle is shared by others, so you feel comfurtable and at ease. If God, knowing all, simply said "you'll like it here", then we would be angry with Him for sending us to a lower place than we thought we wanted. By taking away our memories of Him, we get to see how we really are, and then God puts us in the place we'll be most happy in. As for hiding, He doesn't hide. If He did, we wouldn't be having this discussion because He wouldn't in any way influence anything here.

 

I try and make it a point in my life to allow others to believe whatever they will, while at the same time showing what I know to be true. But I can't unlearn what I've learned, I know it to be fact. You decide whether it is, or whether to believe me when I say that I know it is fact, just as you either believe the world is round because other people say so, or else you become an astranaut and find out for yourself. I highly recommend you don't take my word for any of this, but instead read the BoM and pray about it if you want to know. (I realize I sound arrogent when I say I know, but I really do know. And if you don't believe as I do, then I'm not going to come after you or think you are worse than me. I know what's happening when I die, now I have to catch up with the rest of you and learn how to add, subtract, and multiply-- five things I never could do very well)

[Guest Kelsea]

Three pages of blabber for something that doesn't exist and something that you'll never see or experience, lifes to short, move on

 

P.s. was pretty funny tho reading all of it :wink: