Yes, while all ethical principles that do rely on God are fool-proof.

Er... which is exactly as it should be? That's, like, work, yeah? And that's how, like, the world functions. Poor, poor example. And I can bitch about my boss behind her back, which is more than you can say!

Aaargh. I'm torn between defending Mudling from this onslaught and ripping into him myself.

Rip. More fun, always.

Lolz, I remember when I first joined OWF. I was an idiot too (and still am in some regards, I guess)

Anyway, I've come to consider myself "agnostic" (I'm not totally sure if that's the right term as I've seen it used to describe a different religious preference before). I was raised as an atheist, but shifted away to consider the possibility of a higher power controlling our world, but after learning more about the world itself and contemplating the nature of life, I decided I don't believe in god but won't doubt his existance. This does not mean I don't believe in any sort of higher power at all. Many things have happened in life which seem all too strange to be considered as just coincidental, so I do believe there may be some kind of guiding hand for everything lsuch as Karma. Anywho, I don't care as much about it as I used to. Life has become busier and so I've had to focus my energy on other things rather than just contemplating.

Spell my name right and maybe I won't mock you so much... OK that was just a joke. I will always mock you and your unnecessary double letters

God - Serious Business

Oh and Used. Agnostic is the correct term if you believe that god cannot exist.

Agnostic = Not knowing if there is a god or not, and frankly not really caring...
Atheist = Refusal to believe in any god whatsoever and refusing to believe there is a god.

Thanks, but shouldn't "Gnosticism" come into play with at least one definition?

Explicit atheism: Eschews belief and/or affirms that there are no Gods
Implicit atheism: Does not think about it, has no belief.
Strong agnosticism: "I can't know, and neither can you."
Mild agnosticism: "I don't know, but maybe you do."
Militant agnosticism (lol): "I don't know, and neither do you."
Apathetic agnosticism: "I don't know, and who cares anyway?"
Model agnosticism: "I don't know, but maybe it can be figured out."
Agnostic theism: "I don't know, but I think so."
Agnostic atheism: "I don't know, and I don't think so."
Ignosticism: "I don't know what you're talking about when you refer to God. Unless we first figure that out, debates whether god exists are meaningless."

Gnosticism is a whole other kettle of fish that doesn't fit into the whole atheist/agnostic type system.

I'm definately saving that list in a notepad document.

Agnostic theism ftw.

Hm, lessee...

I really didn't think about it much at all. I just lived life. I read various books and things. Evolution and other scientific theories make sense to me. Religion doesn't so much. I have three things against me believing in religion, as well as the fact almost everything religious is always so damn sketchy:
1. Religion created some right monsters, such as evil popes who just steal money for themselves. Only quite recently have popes and bishops actually properly felt they believed in God.
2. Religion, as well as it's sketchy origins, just seems to have been a primitive theory for existence, how the world works etc. Now we have discovered more detailed, scientific theories.
3. If religion is the truth, how come there are so many different religions then?

I'm not really saying I'm against anyone who agrees with religion, though I don't believe in it myself, despite agreeing with many of their basic morals, which basically no one follows these days.

I don't think about these things much, I just go with the flow. There's not a whole lot of reason for me to think about it, or care. The best moral you can follow is to live life the way you think it should be.

2. Religion, as well as it's sketchy origins, just seems to have been a primitive theory for existence, how the world works etc. Now we have discovered more detailed, scientific theories.

Tsss... Don't you know that the church updates the bible whenever a big undeniable discovery is made? That or they come up with some way to find it back in the bible.

3. If religion is the truth, how come there are so many different religions then?

Because the story of god works the same as any other fairy tale: It's told differently everywhere you go. The one thing all religions except for China have in common is that there is 1 god and 1 prophet. For example these were God/Jezus for christianity and Allah/Mohammed for Islam. Furthermore there are a lot of stories in the Bible and the Kur'an that are virtually the same with some details changed.
My theory on what happened thousands of years ago is that some guy came up with a cool story about how the world was created. He told his story to his family, his friends and they told it to their family and friends. Remember there was no internet or book stores back then, any story worth telling would be told for years on end to thousands of people.
Through the course of salesmen traveling all over the world to sell their stuff the stories were spread worldwide but not in the exact same form. Since cultures were different on different ends of the world, the story was bit by bit altered to fit the culture it was being introduced to, whichever one that is. Now we have two versions of practically the same story floating around and people a few thousand years later to stupid to realize it. Gotta love humanity.

Dude, Islam has 25 prophets, including Jesus.

I definitely fall under agnostic-atheism. I believe it's possible that there is a god but I find it highly unlikely.

Case in point.

2. But, if that's the case, and the bible was 'correct' then why should it ever need to be 'updated' or looked over at all? personally to me, it just seems they're trying to keep people faithful by attempting to have the bible fit in with everything.

3. Forgot the point of 'same basic story, and that's a good idea, but...it wasn't until about 400 years ago white people found blacks in America and so on, and the salve trade began...actually, I think it was later than that...but anyway, these isolated people had their religions long before they came into contact with anyone who would have had a clue what christianity is.
Plus, even if the story could become slightly warped...how does Jesus end up as a four-armed elephant headed god? I can't see how any amount of story changing short of an entire re-writing of the bible could result in that. And that's among other examples.

Ahhh, the salve trade. Healing is a true joy now.

Ok a few things, I apologize with getting involved with PV, I guess I didn't know much about it and attacked with realy only knowing his point of veiw, so OANST you have my apology, yet if I may one thing, you flaming me only proves my point which you have just proved wrong which means that it's all a contracdiction, so you also made me look like a fucking genius in comparasion, but whatever, it's over.
Oh and me telling you to shutup is a lighthearted thing everyone I know does, you're not meant to take it as an insult if you did (Like my parents do)
Hobo, you made me laugh, lol, soz about spelling your name wrong and sorry for the things I said about you, hey you do your job and make us laugh at the same time.
Havoc, I don't understand it, and I don't pretend to, I just live my life and ignore all of these questions but you have a point, and my answer is, people pray to god because it gives them support, seriosly, even thinking someone there helps you, I mean, if you don't know who to talk to, then who better to? Someone who has pledged forgiveness.
Also, I know it's hard to believe when there's alot of pain in the world, and I how I can't believe a testament that says Jews are the chosen race and God controlled an egyptian priest and then killed him basically, but I just take those bits as stories.
And I thinking about it you are completly right, what can God do to us, for us?
And I guess, if God exists, then that is the real tragedy of it all?
I guess you could say billions if not trillions of people can't be wrong, but then you can say that about smoking can't you?

I really didn't.

ONAST can't you just accept my apology, and yes, sorry for that, I guess my smartassessness took over me.
I mean, I'm 15, most of us are like that, well, where I'm from anyway.

Most people in Sydney are smartass 15-year-olds?

Ask the oldies what Alcar was like in his early days...

Pretty much.

Accepted. I love you, too.

On topic (sort of) How is it possible for Christians to hate jews when Jesus was a jew and it says over and over again in the bible that jews are his chosen people.

Because stupidity is humanity's most abundant resource?

Well stated.

Because the Jews were meant to accept Jesus as their saviour and convert to christianity. Those that did not do so clearly deserve painful death.

Becuase some people think the Jews who wrote it rigged the bible to say they were the chosen people, or made a "mistake".
Or maybe that's my veiws, actually, I believe God does not have a chosen people, or even speacies, he loves all of us.
awwwwwwww.
And it was against the Jew's beliefs, and the head jews, the pharises had an anti Jesus thing, which kind of is made everything happen.
And I don't know if anyone hates Jews for being Jews, but the anti Jewish thing is more because of their reputation i'd say, of being *Don't read if you're Jewish, you'll probably be disgusted*
styngy, exclusive, sticking together, smart (Kind of like asian smart, actually, maybe they were like the asians that currently inhabit the schools of australia), unattractive (No offence, I mean more the big nose, dark looks thing).
Their richness and such lead to them being picked on by the Nazis (Kind of like picking on the kid everyone picks on to make yourself look better), and such.
Don't get me wrong, they have incredibly strong influences, I mean, how many WW11 media and stuff are on the side of the Nazis? and then there's holliwood, and saying this makes me feel realy akward, maybe because Jews tend to get offended realy easily.
Anyway, what I've said is stereotypes, most if not all are negative, and it is only stated not as my views, but known views, to show the hate towards Jews.
Christians aren't alone, in fact, it's realy anyone, like muslims and such (Explecially in palastine), and I'm against all this hate (I mean a CD that called Jews pigs, amounsgt promoting terrosim was rated PG here, come on)

Okay, we've got a few myths to work through here:

Chosen People: Means chosen to follow the many laws in the torah. Not chosen for any particular preferential treatment. Jewish tradition states that it's harder for a Jew to get into heaven than a non-Jew, because they have more rules to follow.

Pharisees: The gospel writers got this one wrong because by the time they were putting pen to paper the Pharisees were the only Jews around. Jesus was himself a Pharisee - or at least his viewpoints reflect Pharisaic beliefs at the time. The sect who ran the temple and had political power with the Romans was the Sadducees but with the destruction of the temple in 70AD their powerbase was lost.

Rich/smart/whatever: In the dark-middle ages, the Vatican put out a ruling that Christians couldn't charge interest on loans to other Christians. Seeing as the only other non-pagan group at the time was the Jews, all the money lenders at the time were Jewish. Of course, no-one likes someone that they owe money to, so Jews gained a nasty reputation of being tight with money. In reality, Jews tend to give far more than the average to charity as it's a fairly fundamental part of the religion.

Oh so thats where that Jew thing came from. I was wondering about that ever since I saw Borat :P.