Yeah, this is pretty huge.
Well, I'm agnostic; believing that God's existence cannot be proven (yeah, pretentious, I know...). Whilst I was once Catholic, and a very involved catholic, I became tired of the way the church (authorities) handled their religion - by that I mean throwing in lines about homosexuality and abortion that really have nothing to do with a supreme being and his son. Then I started to question whether or not Catholicism was a valid interpretation of Life, the Universe and Everything.
I do think that Jesus existed, and that in many ways the Bible could be an accurate historical document. In answer to the 'supernatural' events that seem to deny this, it's possible that the book's writers were influenced by the same strong beliefs that many people experience today. I'm loathe to believe in something that was written two millenia ago. Hell - I'm loathe to believe in something written by a journalist yesterday just because it's text sitting on a page.
The biggest gripe I have about Christianity, and equally atheism, is the fact that neither one can be proven. Sure, it might make more sense to assume that God doesn't exist because there's no physical evidence to prove that catholics are right - but either way we can't know for sure.
Christianity's been around for a long time - so long, in fact, that its convictions are often just assumed to be truths. I would love to know what is actually right, but I don't want to assume anything in a matter this important until there's some tangible evidence.
:::added:::
Just a question for One, Two, Middlesboogie - about your altruism statement. Since a person can only teach children the concepts of right and wrong through positive or negative reinforcement, the child would feel good about themselves once they'd done something for someone else - merely because they'd been trained to. In that sense, the behaviour isn't really altruistic at all, since the kid is actually getting a reward for their 'altruistic' action.
[ May 19, 2001: Message edited by: LuxoJr ]
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