What Are Your Beliefs?

[Junket]

I know there is countless threads on peoples beliefs, but as time goes on and people learn new things and different experiences happen in our personal life, beliefs and hopes change. What do you personally believe in?

-I believe God is whom we make it to be, but he is inside of our soul.

-I believe in evolution and the growth and change of human, such as how we are naturally taller than we were back in the day. Partially credited to vitamins and proteins, Partially the natural change and variation of homosapiens?

-I still have no decision or belief on how we actually got onto earth.

-Im not too sure what happens when we die, One thought of mine, is maybe we wake up. Wake up in a different place, maybe in "heaven" as a flawless version of our old self, Maybe in someones elses shoes on this planet, or a far away galaxy. Perhaps we just end up in eternal blackness.

-I believe in ghosts and demons. I think that for certain reasons and occurances, ghosts can come on earth and communicate and send signals. I think that demons can possess people, but not randomly, a thought out reason for it in our soul, from God.

-I believe in luck and superstition, but to a slight degree, Sending a chain letter wont save some young little boys life, but i do think that murphys law of doing something bad and having it come back and get you is a direct effect of our souls balance.

What are your takes on this crazy life of ours?

[JunkYard]

-Im not too sure what happens when we die, One thought of mine, is maybe we wake up. Wake up in a different place, maybe in "heaven" as a flawless version of our old self, Maybe in someones elses shoes on this planet, or a far away galaxy. Perhaps we just end up in eternal blackness.

I think, if anything, we return to the world we left behind. How appropriate would that be?

Then again, we may just cease to exist...

Regards,

[Oneironaut]

-I believe God is whom we make it to be, but he is inside of our soul.
I'm an atheist. Since I make God out to be a fairy tale, does that mean he is one?

-Im not too sure what happens when we die, One thought of mine, is maybe we wake up. Wake up in a different place, maybe in "heaven" as a flawless version of our old self, Maybe in someones elses shoes on this planet, or a far away galaxy. Perhaps we just end up in eternal blackness.
What evidence do you have for any of that? When you get down to the bottom of it, you shouldn't believe in anything unless there is sufficient evidence to believe in it. Otherwise you are just engaging in wishful thinking.


-I believe in ghosts and demons. I think that for certain reasons and occurances, ghosts can come on earth and communicate and send signals. I think that demons can possess people, but not randomly, a thought out reason for it in our soul, from God.
What evidence do you have for this?


-I believe in luck and superstition, but to a slight degree, Sending a chain letter wont save some young little boys life, but i do think that murphys law of doing something bad and having it come back and get you is a direct effect of our souls balance.
What evidence do you have for the existence of souls?


What are your takes on this crazy life of ours?
I think we have to look at reality for what it is. I know gods and souls sound like neat ideas, but that doesn't make them true. We don't know where the universe came from. We just don't. And there's nothing to suggest that there's a "God" interfering with our planet. Everything down here seems to operate completely predictably according to the laws of physics.

As for our "souls", we have already found them. They are our brains. Like it or not, all our thoughts, our emotions, our loves and hates are just chemicals and neurons in our brains. When some of those brain cells are destroyed, we lose some of our thinking capabilities and our personalities. When a lot of those brain cells are destroyed, we lose a lot of our thinking capabilities and our personalities. When all of them are destroyed (i.e. when we die), we lose all of our thinking capabilities and our personalities. It's not necessarily the most comforting explanation, but it is the correct one. We have to realize that so we can make the most of the few decades we have on this precious planet.

[Kokujin X]

I'm an atheist. Since I make God out to be a fairy tale, does that mean he is one?

What evidence do you have for any of that? When you get down to the bottom of it, you shouldn't believe in anything unless there is sufficient evidence to believe in it. Otherwise you are just engaging in wishful thinking.


What evidence do you have for this?


What evidence do you have for the existence of souls?


I think we have to look at reality for what it is. I know gods and souls sound like neat ideas, but that doesn't make them true. We don't know where the universe came from. We just don't. And there's nothing to suggest that there's a "God" interfering with our planet. Everything down here seems to operate completely predictably according to the laws of physics.

As for our "souls", we have already found them. They are our brains. Like it or not, all our thoughts, our emotions, our loves and hates are just chemicals and neurons in our brains. When some of those brain cells are destroyed, we lose some of our thinking capabilities and our personalities. When a lot of those brain cells are destroyed, we lose a lot of our thinking capabilities and our personalities. When all of them are destroyed (i.e. when we die), we lose all of our thinking capabilities and our personalities. It's not necessarily the most comforting explanation, but it is the correct one. We have to realize that so we can make the most of the few decades we have on this precious planet.

Well, tell me this. What do you believe started life? Life in its self is so advanced especially when you look at the complexity of humans. How could something with any intelligence exist with nothing advanced behind it? The odds are impossible. It would be like advanced software just appearing out of nowhere to make an analogy. You may want to sound like your just being logical but, in all actuality, it takes more faith to believe we appeard out of nowhere then it does to believe in a God.

We have to realize that so we can make the most of the few decades we have on this precious planet.

And what is precious about our lifes if there is no God? Ultimately, we live in a dieing universe. At some point in the future, the Earth will cease to support life, the sun will stop burning, and our universe will collapse. So ultimatly, whats the reason for life? The whole existance of man will make no ultimate diffrence to anything, and strictly to the point, life is absurd. There would be absolutly no reason to it.

I'm sorry that you have no faith in God and I wish you would reconsider (for your sake). Don't take this as an insult or anything, I can't change you. It's your choice.

[JunkYard]

Hey, I got one for the 'flock' ;)

It's called:

â??War Against The Nightâ??

Damn the beast against the light
Damn the blindness he bestows upon the people of this world
Damn the beast, and his night
Cry disgust when you find true light-blind victims of the night

(Then wage war against the darkness!)

Pardon not the preacher, politician, lawyer, teacher
lest he turn from mischief-deciet
But lend pity unto the flock, the trusting, the blind, the meek
Awaken them from their sleep

(And free them from the illusion!)

Confusion, delusion, the doctrines seduce them whole
The stories are as yeast is to bread and steal their soul-decieved
We walk not in the peace of them, but among them-they the wolves
dressed in white they spread their night

(diseased)

Our people are killed for lack of knowledge
The denial of what is real
As they give praise to the lies
The wolf steals, then kills, and bills

So stand now on reality, and hold honesty up high
Build your house upon this rock, and sound your battle cry
The lion roars, and a giant you now must fight
pick up the stone of honesty, and let her devour the night

Reality shall be your light!
Honesty shall be your fight!
Wage war against the night!
War against the night.

[sm0k1t]

BAH NO WORRY =D INFINITY IS BIG DONT YOU THINK?
damn caps =P
as I said in another thread I believe in both God and humans and science and wathever has the only good intention...too love for our survival nothing else matters really

love makes the world go round =)

[PureEvil760]

i believe no truth can be seen until death, therefore you can really just do wahtever the fuck you want.

[MoonStarer420]

...Ultimately, we live in a dieing universe. At some point in the future, the Earth will cease to support life, the sun will stop burning, and our universe will collapse.
Youâ??re missing a few major things in this statement. The first is that the Universe is not dieing, it's expanding not contracting. Not to mention that our Universe appears to be flat, exactly flat, not open or closed. (I say appears because it's a recent idea, but so far it is strongly supported by observational data and theoretical ideas.) We don't know the reason for our flat Universe and we probably wonâ??t for a long, long time. There are too many other questions to answer first like what is this dark energy that is causing this expansion? What other influences does it have? What does it consist of? You should be more careful of shooting out "true" statements like that one.

"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist the facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts." -Sherlock Holmes

Einstein made a satirical comment about the same thing:
"When the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts."

Out of curiosity: Where did you get the idea of a collapsing Universe anyway? What was the sources evidence for it?

On to the fate of the Sun and Earth: We have (that is if we don't get destroyed by ourselves or a major natural cataclysmic event first) a little less then 4.5 billion years to prepare for the destruction of the Earth by the Sun. (These are one in the same: "...the Earth will cease to support life, the sun will stop burning...") It only took our species only a few thousand years to go from building spears to building rockets. Cosmic rays are the only major problem holding us back from colonizing other planets and moons. Once we develop a way to stop those from killing us in space, we'll be set not only for Mars but other stars as well. (Well resources may be a problem as well. To make it to other stars we need to build a ship big enough to hold enough people to stop from inbreeding.) It might be possible to solve both the cosmic ray problem and the inbreeding problem through biological technology. That is if we developed a way to repair our damaged or malfunctioning DNA.


I'm sorry that you have no faith in God...

Where science starts is where religion begins.
Science is a combination of skepticism and open mindedness. How can you ask someone to believe in something without any proof it exists? I'll provide an analogy by Carl Sagan (he writes it much more elegantly, but I summed it up to make it shorter):

I tell you that I have a dragon in my garage but you want me to prove it exists. However, when I open the garage door, I reveal nothing but empty space. You ask "where's the dragon?" and I say, "oh it's here, but it's invisible." Your not convinced, so you suggest a few ways of testing it's there; put flour on the floor to look for footprints, throw paint on the dragon to make out it's shape, move around the garage to try and touch it and use an infrared camera to detect his body heat and breath. But for every method you suggest I have an explanation for why it wonâ??t work; the dragon levitates so you won't see the footprints, the paint wonâ??t stick to the dragon, he's ethereal so your arms will go right through him, and he's a heatless dragon so the infrared camera won't detect his signal.

In the end we still have no idea if the dragon is there or not, but whatâ??s the difference does it make if the levitating, ethereal, heatless dragon is there or not? My point is how can you believe (or at least expect others to believe) in an idea if you can't prove it actually exists?


And what is precious about our lifes if there is no God?
How wouldn't it be? We're stellar ash that has the ability to understand and manipulate the Universe and world around us. Our Earth is the only planet known to harbor not only intelligent life, but any life.

[MoonStarer420]

...science and wathever has the only good intention...
What about the hydrogen bomb? it's not even close to being good thing.

[MoonStarer420]

Edit: I ment "Where science ends is where religion begins."

[Kryzco]

My beliefs

To me there is no god

evolution is how we were created, until I can find a better theory, this is just what I'm stuck with, but I'm fine with saying I just don't know

i see an individual as the master of their own destiny, and when you die you face yourself, to see whether you can accept the sins you've made or not

I don't believe in life after death, but if its there, then thats what would happen to me

I see an individual as their toughest critic, let them be the judge

I believe highly in respect, and in Laveryan Satanism, because you are your own god, respect is critical

I believe in acceptance of the things around us, despise the fact of whether or not we agree with them

I don't think i really fit into a religion because I have different views on different subjects that contradict what it is to be an atheist or laveyan satanist so I just say I'm laveyan because most of my beliefs fit with those of the church of satan

[Oneironaut]

Well, tell me this. What do you believe started life?
I don't know. I'm not a molecular biologist, and I wasn't around when it happened, so I'm not going to pretend like I know everything about how life began. Modern molecular biology is just starting to piece together how it might have happened. The origin of life happened billions of years ago, and all the organisms along the way have decomposed since then. It's extremely naïve to think that just because we haven't pieced together this extremely complex chemical process of which there is no surviving record, that it couldn't have happened according to the laws of physics.

Life in its self is so advanced especially when you look at the complexity of humans. How could something with any intelligence exist with nothing advanced behind it? The odds are impossible. It would be like advanced software just appearing out of nowhere to make an analogy. You may want to sound like your just being logical but, in all actuality, it takes more faith to believe we appeard out of nowhere then it does to believe in a God.
You are right when you say that humans are extremely complex, more so than any other animal, because we have intelligence. Intelligence is the most complex thing we know of. So how did this extremely complex thing we call intelligence come about? Your explanation is that intelligence didn't evolve, it was planned. Well, by what? Intelligence, you say. Where did that intelligence come from? It's like this humanity-designing software called God (which must be way more complex than life itself) just appeared out of nowhere, to make an analogy.

We have to realize that so we can make the most of the few decades we have on this precious planet.

And what is precious about our lifes if there is no God? Ultimately, we live in a dieing universe. At some point in the future, the Earth will cease to support life, the sun will stop burning, and our universe will collapse. So ultimatly, whats the reason for life? The whole existance of man will make no ultimate diffrence to anything, and strictly to the point, life is absurd. There would be absolutly no reason to it.
There is no pre-programmed purpose for your life. Is that something to be sorry for, to feel sad about? There is no intrinsic purpose for an electron, for a rock, for a quasar or for a human. But the human has the capability to define purpose for himself, which is a good thing, but he must realize that purpose is a human construct and exists only in his mind. You are free to define the purpose of your own life. That's no tragedy. That's what free will is all about.

Besides, what is the purpose of life in a God-driven universe? To serve God? I don't want to be his slave. To be good? You can do that in a godless universe too. Truth is, even religious people don't know what the meaning of life is. How many millions of answers to that question have there been in the history of religion? I have yet to see all believers in God come to a consensus on the "meaning of life" issue. Even if God exists, he gave us free will, which includes the freedom to live for your own purpose and not for a purpose somebody else chose for you before you were born.

And do you really care what happens to the planet billions of years after you're dead? Why does that matter to anyone alive today? You've only got a few decades here. Don't fret about the fact that the Sun will engulf the Earth in 4 billion years any more than you fret about the fact that the planet was a giant ball of molten lava 4 billion years ago.


I'm sorry that you have no faith in God and I wish you would reconsider (for your sake). Don't take this as an insult or anything, I can't change you. It's your choice.
I have pondered this issue deeply, but when you get down to the bottom of it, there just isn't any evidence for a God. If he exists, he sure doesn't care about us down here on Earth, or else he'd come out and end all this conflict between religions by telling us which one is the true one.

If there is a God that doesn't want me to be an atheist, he is free to reveal himself to me at any time. I don't want to have to take it on faith or on philosophizing about the origin of life. I just want a little evidence that I can see for myself. Is that so much to ask from an all-powerful, all-loving being?

[graph]

I believe that no one knows, and no one is right. If there was an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-encompassing force that has bestowed us with the gift of life, our small monkey brains couldn't possible comprehend this force or its ways. But hey, what do I know, I'm buddhist.

Always remember: Jesus saves, Buddha invests.

[BestTonicIsChronic]

Ya i guess i would say that i do belive in God, cuz damn I do some REALLY stupid shit. Example drinking a whole bottle of Robotussin with psudoephedrin n like 3-4 other things besides DXM, so I thank God that Im still here, n thats just one of the many stupid things ive done in the last yr ur 2 since ive been into drugs n shit. Also the whole ALL-KNOWING thing, I would never want that, cuz what would be the point of living anymore theres no goal, no suprise, so that shit better left to god.

[mrdevious]

I believe that captain Picard is far supperior to captain Kirk.

[MoonStarer420]

Yea, at least he had the balls to admit he was bald.

[graph]

I believe that captain Picard is far supperior to captain Kirk.

Yeah, picard was all about the ladies.

Just like sean connery, which is why he's my favorite james bond

[Oneironaut]

I believe that captain Picard is far supperior to captain Kirk.
I agree. I also believe lots of other things, including but lot limited to the following:
-country music sucks
-the moon is not made of cheese
-oxygen is good
-lava is bad
-smoking pot is fun
-testicles are not off-limits in a fight
-cheesecake is tasty
-the oppressed masses need to rise up against their capitalist oppresors
-macaroni and cheese is also tasty