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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN like i give a shit.

but you believe in the 'messiah'!

Why are we here? Simple, it pleased God for us to be here. He created us in his image to rule over this planet. As for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, I believe God did the same thing for them. Apparently the Vatican agrees with me on that, not surprising really when the Pope reads more science articles than theological ones.

This answer does not satisfy a lot of people, I know it doesn't. It didn't satisfy Israel in the Old Testament. That's why they repeatedly wanted a King to rule over them instead of God. Their choice was always the same, either be slaves to a man (IE: King of Egypt) and be part of that one person's accumulative nature, to acquire as much wealth as was possible without any re-distribution or to submit 100% to God and enjoy a good life on earth. Needless to say, the Jews flip flopped back and forth about as much as a modern day politician running for office in the USA.

(That little rant was inspired by a book im reading called the "Blackwell companion to Political Theology"... Super fascinating to me, what can I say it's combining the best of both worlds for me )

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Originally posted by diggerz but you believe in the 'messiah'!

no, i am reasonably warm to obama's politics

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN Essentially, religion cannot answer questions about the mind of god, the afterlife, the meaning of life, or make accurate predictions about any of them. Pretty poor from an "ism" that claims divine knowledge.

Well...

The entire Bible is an insight into the "mind of God" even though "mind of God" is a questionable statement itself. To assume God has a mind is to assume that he created us exactly like himself and not just in his image.

The Bible gives detailed predictions about the judgment, it also gives insights into what the after life will be like.

Also, for Christians at least, we do not claim to have divine knowledge. We do have divine revelation which is different. We have some big answers revealed to us, with our full understanding to be achieved in the after life. The other answers come from our own inquisitive nature that was also given to us by God, IE: through philosophy, science etc.

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Originally posted by Alex Well... The entire Bible is an insight into the "mind of God" even though "mind of God" is a questionable statement itself. To assume God has a mind is to assume that he created us exactly like himself and not just in his image. The Bible gives detailed predictions about the judgment, it also gives insights into what the after life will be like. Also, for Christians at least, we do not claim to have divine knowledge. We do have divine revelation which is different. We have some big answers revealed to us, with our full understanding to be achieved in the after life. The other answers come from our own inquisitive nature that was also given to us by God, IE: through philosophy, science etc.

The problem of course, is that we cannot verify any of these claims until we're dead! a bit late for my mortal body's quest for knowledge

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Well that's really where faith comes in to play, we put our faith in our beliefs that are grounded in earthly validity (which is obviously debatable between theists and atheists) that we will be invited into the paradise that is the after life and given the answers to all the questions we have.

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Originally posted by Lira Sure. How about the question "How should I lead a moral life?"? Let's pick the Ten Commandments, the ultimate Christian moral imperatives: [*] I am the Lord your God (well, all right, it doesn't really hurt);

the relation to morality being?

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Originally posted by Lira [*] You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God (if only extremists didn't ignore this bit );

a bit useless, since it doesn't come bundled with a list of what qualifies a use as 'wrongful'.

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Originally posted by Lira [*] Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy (woohoo, a day off once a week, so I can sit back and think about how awesome life is!);

relation to morality being?

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Originally posted by Lira [*] Honour your father and mother (sounds fair);

sounds fair, perhaps. is fair? no. honour should be gained, not automatically received. not all parents equally deserve honour, most don't.

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Originally posted by Lira [*] You shall not kill (sounds fairer);

sure, but as an absolute rule, it's not really the best one out there, so long as there are other groups who do not follow the same made up list of answers.

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Originally posted by Lira [*] You shall not commit adultery (Good advice for not getting in trouble);

even in a polygamous society?

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Originally posted by Lira [*] You shall not steal (hmm... yeah, I don't see anything wrong with this either);

robin hood.

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Originally posted by Lira [*] You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour (should go without saying, but I'm glad someone bothered to make that clear);

what if the legal system is so inefficient that the only way to bust a 'bad' man would be to transgress this moral rule?

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Originally posted by Lira [*] You shall not covet your neighbour's wife (specially if your neighbour owns guns );

tantamount to 'you shall not be human'.

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Originally posted by Lira [*] You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbour ("be happy with what you've got"? Sounds like a deal to me!).

tantamount to 'you shall not be human'.

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Originally posted by Lira Or.. are you perhaps sad, trying to cope with your depression, and you want to know how to overcome your sorrow? I think we could refer to the Four Noble Truths instead: The Nature of Suffering (Dukkha): "This is the noble truth of suffering: birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering; sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair are suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering; separation from what is pleasing is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering." (kind of pessimistic but, such is life) Suffering's Origin (Samudaya): "This is the noble truth of the origin of suffering: it is this craving which leads to renewed existence, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and there, that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence, craving for extermination." (sounds reasonable) Suffering's Cessation (Nirodha): "This is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering: it is the remainderless fading away and cessation of that same craving, the giving up and relinquishing of it, freedom from it, nonreliance on it." (doesn't really sounds like a bad idea to me) The Way (Mārga) Leading to the Cessation of Suffering: "This is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering: it is the Noble Eightfold Path; that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration." (I fail to see anything inherently wrong with this bit).

you're not happy? change most everything about yourself! you won't be much of yourself anymore, but hey, at least you won't be sad! ...or would you?

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Originally posted by Lira But, Lira!, you may object, What about philosophy? Don't you think we're better off listening to philosophers rather than blindly following religious dogmas?.

listening to philosophers? no. being philosophers? certainly.

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Originally posted by Lira Sure. How about the question "How should I lead a moral life?"? Let's pick the Ten Commandments, the ultimate Christian moral imperatives: I am the Lord your God (well, all right, it doesn't really hurt); You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God (if only extremists didn't ignore this bit ); Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy (woohoo, a day off once a week, so I can sit back and think about how awesome life is!); Honour your father and mother (sounds fair); You shall not kill (sounds fairer); You shall not commit adultery (Good advice for not getting in trouble); You shall not steal (hmm... yeah, I don't see anything wrong with this either); You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour (should go without saying, but I'm glad someone bothered to make that clear); You shall not covet your neighbour's wife (specially if your neighbour owns guns ); You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbour ("be happy with what you've got"? Sounds like a deal to me!).

Just a little adjustment, "Thou shall not kill" is actually wrongly translated in almost every modern version of the Bible, it should actually have been translated as "you shall not murder.

Sort of a distinction there because otherwise Moses would have gone to hell Which sort of would have been a bummer given he didn't get to enter the promised lands to Israel!

One of the few things Lutherans got right actually, and in more recent history the Catholic church had to clarify that they didn't advocate people just getting murdered because they didn't want to sin

Science explores the mind of god.

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Originally posted by Krypton Science explores the mind of god.

So said Galileo!

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Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN i know you hate him but http://richarddawkins.net/firstChapter,1

i usually stay out of these threads because i don't pretend to have many of these answers but i was reading through and this struck me.

you and Dawkins are selling Einstein waaaaayyyy short. Einstein didn't think a God was merely anecdotal or even metaphorical, he beilieved God was essential and worthy of reverence equalling anything he and others before him took on in the fields of science

like Alex said, Einstein believed in a higher power. not only did he believe in it, he thought mankind and it's efforts to unlock the mysteries of nature would be lost without it.

he postulated continuously about the reconciliation between knowledge and belief. he thought correctly that knowledge without belief was completely one-sided and lacked beauty. he thought objective knowledge was a wonderful tool that brought mankind's achievements in thought to once thought impossible ends, but he also believed it was imperative to acknowledge that mankind's longing to achieve those ends should not be without a reverence to a power higher than man's.

he also gave the utmost reverence to what he thought was the ultimate expression of mankind's moral aspirations and judgements, the Judeao/Christian religious tradition. he thought those principles were essential to the development of the individual not only in behavior but without such principles an individual had no basis for a desire to become more knowledgable.

you see, the question of whether Einstein "believed in God" is pretty pointless. if he believed in anything he believed that mankind has little purpose and meaning without a belief in something omnipotently greater than himself. the man once regarded as one of history's foremost pragmatist and rationalizers, was as religious as the Pope himself...for all practical purposes of course.