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The Word of No Godwho told u that even
who told u that even relegious people dont get with life and as you feel happy without God, they feel happy when they worship only one God. As you didnt taste that beauty , i wil give you execuses and you will never know it as you didnt go through that experience and that is your destiny. Every one is free to choose his relegion or not, and people who choose to worship wants rewards after words and the difference between people who dont beleive in god and others who beleive is what will happen after death ? so who beleive in God , wants to prepare themselves to enter paradize and yes God will not benefit from us or from our worshiping, we are the one who will benifit and it is a record for us later to see what we did. not only praying or headscarves or beard will give us rewards, it is by intenitons and all our life is worshiping. when i work , i worship God, when sleep to get up for prayer all the time will consider as worshiping, when the man say truth also sort of worshiping God and all good deeds while you beleive in God , so you are worshiping him, it is so easy and rewardable, so why i will loose it ? Who said I haven't
Who said I haven't worshipped? I was raised in a mix of Anglican, Agnostic and Catholic beliefs, which finished up with attending a Catholic College (Marist Brothers in fact) for my senior levels. If anyone knows about Archaic rituals, it's the Roman Catholics. From my experience there I found that the rituals involved with prayer are pointless, and that prayer itself is only there to give people hope in times of despair. The teachings of the bible - ten commandments, etc - are good, instilling virtues we can all use, but then the bible is open to interpretation and can be used for evil (as we have seen with certain countries which continue with state religion). What happens after death is the least of my worries: I'll be dead! What happens before I die is what's important. So what you've said in your 3rd paragraph is that prayer is a completely selfish thing, as you're only doing it to benefit yourself once you've died, and that you're not doing it for your god at all. I find that funny (strange funny, not ha-ha). Again, worship, headscarves and BREAD (what you eat, not what grows on your face - as in 'eat this bread, it is my body' in christianity) are archaic and selfish as they are only done to benefit whoever does it, not the god they do it for. Does that make sense? What's going to help someone more: Praying for them, or actually going there and helping them yourself? We all know that the Palestinian issue is a sore point for you, but what would you do for them: Pray for them, or go there and help them in person? Which do you think would be of more benefit to those people? Joe.bloggs
The different
Joe.bloggs The different from beleiver in God and non beleiver is the coming life after death. beleivers worry much about that time and becase of that they try to do as much work to gain good marks to reach paradize and that is their rival race and not collecting money or become celebrity or popular or even presidents . They care more about the other life and who tell u that you will not feel after death? you will be concsious with the soul and only the body will die, but the soul is still alive and watch and know everything and will see what she perform in this life and be happy or shame . so you will not be completely dead, you will be alive and beleivers knows that now we are dead and when the real death come, we become alive. dont laugh and make cacism please of that . You also laughed as we worship god and we are selfish to benefit ourselves and we have to be like that , it is not slefishness as we do it for our God to give us good marks as students study hard and look for the teacher to give them high marks according to their work and at the same time teachers will not benefit from them if they are smart or not, the teacher will teach them basics and they have to do their homeworks alone and the teacher can know who is good student and who will achieve high marks and can pridict that from the style of the student and of course i will not assemble God to teacher in everything but it is as an example. we do that for ourselves and as an evidence for our success, the same as students received their certificate from school of their grades and at the day of judjment each one of us will receive his certificate from God. again for the bible and for
again for the bible and for your prayers before , you find them pointless as i beleive with you, in the bible and true torat , it doesnt teach you how to pray to only God like us . now iam reading a small book written by sinom alfredo caraballo who convert to islam and he said that My great love for jesus led me to islam. i can understand how many questions christianity cant answer it especially the crusification of jesus (pbuh) and that guy become athesis and dont beleive in christianity as long as God didnt prevent his son from crusification and when he read in quran that they killed him not, nor crucified him ) as for jesus he repeated it several times and he felt God answered his quesiton about doubts he have since long time about the power of Allah (God) due to the lack of a logical and convincing answer. The book is enteristing and iam in the first pages.
praying for palestinians and
praying for palestinians and actually going and helping them will benefit them . relegion go with work and God also reward working and helping others more than praying extra prayers, but the 5 essentials prayers daily are a must and each prayer will not take more than 5 minutes maximum. Is that make sense for u also . head scarves, beards, what to eat and not to eat are symbols that we obey God and try to do our bests to please him and for each one is a benefit , but i cant now explain it for u , it needs much explanation. Right on Joe
I can't help
Right on Joe I can't help noticing how so much of the conflict in the world is excacerbated by religion. The most infuriating thing is that in most cases the originators of these superstitions say fairly sound things (love one another, do unto others, turn the other cheek, share the planet etc) but their followers get obsessed with acarne details of doctrine to the extent of completely negating the original message. I can't help feeling that Mohamed would have little time for Ahmadinejad or Osama Bin Laden and how much of John Hagee's or Pat Robertson's poisonous venom would be endorsed by JC? I'm not 100% in agreement with you. I do think there are good and decent people out there who are inspired by what they consider to be their maker (MLK, Gandhi, Tutu etc) But I wonder to what extent they create a good God because they are good people in the first place. And yet the worst tyrannies
And yet the worst tyrannies of the 20th Century were atheist. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Hitler - it is a long and very, very bloody list. So does the lack of religion - or of a basic religious belief -lead to a lack of humanity for the want of a better term ? And yet the worst tyrannies
And yet the worst tyrannies of the 20th Century were atheist. owly Hitler was a Roman Catholic. 
 Owly,
You seem to be
Owly, You seem to be concerned with the tyrannies of totalitarian ideologies, not atheist. That they may have been atheist is only one part of a much more complex historical context. I don't see a relationship between atheism and mass murder at any rate. If that were so we'd be seeing blood baths in our streets today as there are many more atheists about now, wouldn't you say? Owly,
Could those terribly
Owly, Could those terribly tyrannical atheists be examples of people who don't know (or don't care about) the basic concepts of right and wrong? BC, As I said, there are some exceptions - Mother Teresa being another. I do think some people just want to do right by others anyway, but just happened to be raised in a religious environment so that's how it came out. Quote: Could those terribly
[quote] Could those terribly tyrannical atheists be examples of people who don't know (or don't care about) the basic concepts of right and wrong? [/quote] But to Stalin, Mao and Hitler etc they were doing 'right' as you term it. All the regimes I mentioned were militantly Anti-Religion. Eric5 trying to be clever, said Hitler was a Roman Catholic. He was born into that faith but rejected it, as did Stalin (who even entered a seminary) who was Orthodox. The basic point remains unanswered: does a lack of any sort of religion lead to a lack of Humanity ?
Owly
I don't know about
Owly I don't know about being RC but Hitler was definately a Christian. He regarded himself as the bastion of "christendom" in fact. It's in Mein kampf. More to the point, the people who did his dirty work were overwhelmingly Christian. There's a sort of oblique holocaust denial which tries to say that it was a unique historical aberration. The holocaust was simply the anti-semitism which christians had been doing for centuries with modern technology and administration. As to the others? Well Stalin was most certainly a bad man. But there's very little doubt that had the "white" armies prevailed the Russian empire would have been ruled in just as brutal a fashion with anti-semitism to rival Nazi Germany. Don't forget that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the Blood Libel were invented by the devout Tsarists. Mao? Again he has to be seen in historical context. The Kuomintang were at least as brutal. Joe I wouldn't include Mother Teresa. She opposed social reforms and deliberately denied people medical attention so that they could die in a state of grace rather than go back out into the streets and sin again. BC,
Good point, that's a
BC, Good point, that's a definite negative of religion coming through. Like the idea of trying to preach the word of 'keep it in your pants' to those infected with aids/HIV, rather than the idea of safe sex. Owly, That would be an obvious misunderstanding as to what is seen as fundamentally 'right' by any 'reasonable person'. I see no connection with a lack of religion and a lack of humanity. Just because you're not religious does not mean you're incapable of teaching positive virtues to others... Owly
Quote:Since the
Owly
[quote]Since the abolition of Capital Punishment in the UK the murder rate has It has also tripled since the axing of Mr Pastry on children's television. I think to prove the connection you'd have to find a devoutly religious country and look at their muder rate...er the US perhaps? Joe [quote]I see no connection with a lack of religion and a lack of humanity. [/quote] Perhaps the opposite is the case. Would a suicide bomber be able to detonate in a busy shopping centre if not for the corruption of morality by religion? Look at the treatment of Jews by Christians over the last 1,300 years. Or what about the Shankill Butchers who, because of their religious bigotry, saw themselves as exterminating godless vermin rather than torturing and killing real people. I think that religion is very rarely the root cause of the horrors of history. But it does make things worse by exaggerating "otherness" and by providing a moral alibi for evil acts. BC,
Good point. I must
BC, Good point. I must admit, money is another enormous evil - or rather the preoccupation some people have with it...
Abdulksaida,
I'm trying
Abdulksaida, I'm trying to point out that you 'trying to get good marks' may be done to try and impress your god - like a student would his teacher - but that is still selfish, as by trying to impress him you're trying to win his favour so that your afterlife is better than it might be if you didn't pray. Does that make sense to anyone else? Nobody is able to tell us that there is anything after death, as they are dead and are unable to communicate with us. As soon as an angel (or some other heavenly being) speaks to me, personally, I will change my tune. Wouldn't you rather do things to help the people who are here on earth with you, rather than trying to get good marks from your teacher? In the end, that is still only enriching your own life - unless you took those teachings and used them to the benefit of others. So you're saying that you're both praying for your fellow palestinians as well as going to help them? How do your prayers help them? I'm curious, simply because it seems like your palestinians have so far had a pretty tough time. Same goes for the Jews: They've suffered for a long time, though I'm sure they prayed to their god throughout the whole of it. Something tells me that their suffering hasn't ended yet. Do you see that the concept of wearing headscarves, growing beards, eating/drinking certain things - or going without as the case is sometimes - for some all powerful being whom hasn't been proven to exist (I do realise this being hasn't been disproven either), seems very counter-intuitive? It doesn't make very much sense at all to be honest. Good luck with the book, I hope it's a good read.
joe bloggs
for u first
joe bloggs for u first paragraph, yes it is make sense to all and word selfish cant fit here, as even each person has to do things alone by convince as God will reward him or punish him alone without the help of others, so he or she has to be selfish in that way to win without hurting anyone. we have to please our God to win later and in this life and why not to love him as love is also between humanbeings and manytimes it is selfish and for backrewards in many manifists. and if u say it is selfish, so let it be if we dont hurt anyone and we do good things to us and others according to morals. i didnt understand how u will change u tune when u meet one of the angles or others? u will not be able to do anything at that time and only what u heart have before will be recorded only. yes the teaching will help us in doing good for other people and help them, so no contradictions in that and also will increase our marks later in the certificate, so that is the real rival road and race. our beleive in praying is not any others as i think , if we pray for others , it means we care about them and try to help them by all means and as we strongly beleive that everything is in the hand of Allah(God) , we pray for them as also to have more marks for us and them, we show that we are humanbeings and we not only enjoy life and their are other people who are suffering and die from hunger. We try our best not to let them be hungry, but if we cant do anything, so at least to think about them and pray for them untill we will be able. also if our neighbor is hungry and we are not, so Allah will not consider us as real beleiver in God. help is a must for beleivers to others who are suffering . why u obey trafic rules? as only u see the law or police only and that is not smart or inutive. smartness is to obey God even if u didnt see him and to think for u next life which is not seen now and never can we see it now. dont trust much your mind and even that mind is from Allah who creats it for u . We have to be humble to him and beleive in him as long as you cant change anything you created with like shape, race, coulur and manthings. if u are smart so if e.g as u said God is not proved or disproved, so it is better to believe in him to win. We muslims dont think like your thinking, we have strong beleiving in God and never we can say that as our invironment is totally different than the west. I think becasue of that God choose ME to descend its 3 great relegions and not in the west as he knows that those people will keep it especially people of islam and people of Quran which never changed from 1400 years.
So now you're saying that
So now you're saying that praying and worship is like a race, and that the most worthy 'win' their way into heaven? Seriously, if your god was so all-powerful, why would he care whether you worshipped him or not? Religion has hurt others, even those of the same faith. I refer to my last posts in the 'Iran is not the enemy' thread, where a high profile muslim admits that much blood was shed during the formation of Hezbollah - not that of Israelis, but that of other muslims while Hezbollah fought it's own people and palestinians in order to extend its influence. As Hezbollah is supposed to be THE shia representative in Lebanon, and also the representative for the Islamic Republic, why must they kill their own people in order to gain power? How does that demonstrate good religious values?? As they worship the same god as you, are you able to enlighten us as to their thought process? The same goes for those in certain Christian faiths where child abuse goes on unchecked. What in god's name is good and holy about that?? I don't know about you, but I don't obey rules because of the fear of what will happen if I'm caught, I simply do the right thing because it's common sense. Can you explain to me why it is a good idea to believe in something which hasn't been proven? I can understand the desire to try and prove something, but if I can live my life in a good and reasonable way and that the only thing different between me and you is that I do not worship but you do, then how am I any worse when it comes to 'judgement time'? Because I didn't pray five times a day or grow a beard? It does seem very silly. Having said that, a belief in a god isn't a bad thing, my problem is with the interpretation: A bible in my hands means that my kids will grow up knowing about the biblical happenings, and with a sense of right and wrong, but the bible in the hands of someone with a fundamentalist interpretation means their children could grow up hating Jews, because of the idea that 'they killed jesus'. I'm not trying to be a smart-arse here, I actually know people with that mentality. It's scary.
joe bloggs
Yes
joe bloggs Yes because God is all powerful, and he asked us to worship him as he created us from first and he gave us this favour , so we have to obey him as we can , as a mean of thankful to him and also to get good grades as he asked and the worship will give benefit to us and others in this life , so why not doing it ? As u said you do right things as it is common sense , you have to be thankful to God who provide u with this common sense , others they dont have and have to struggle. Besides of course Allah (God ) wants us to proove what we say, we cant only say by words that we beleive in God and then we quit from our obligation to that God. Believers have to struggle more than disbeleiver to gain paradize and entering paradize needs much good work and good thinking of Allah (Good). In addition not always common sense as you think is correct , i mean if you dont beleive in him , so he will let u to your mind and dont tell me that u r perfect and can know everything correct or not correct, only God knows , so God will help more who asked for him and who pray much to him by doing good deeds while remembering him and that is also common sense. How come God reward people whom hates him and dont obey his rules? Yes God is merciful and also can punish at the same time for bad deeds and hurting others.
you said " Religion has
you said " Religion has hurt others, even those of the same faith" and u give example of hizbullah. I dont know about blood shet between them eventhough if that happened not all in one group are correct and may be some incorrect things happened and each one will be subject to court in this life or after that and that doesnt mean all the group is incorrect or the relegion is bad becasue some people misinterpret it . As adult , you can differentiate alone and we are personally alone responsible for our bad acts and that is common sense also. Our problems that all of us generalize things . You know also USA formed after a blood shed between all states and then united and i dont mean iam with blood shed, it is totally wrong. Is that also common sense and they didnt use relegion for that unity. i will answers other things later
Eric5 trying to be
Eric5 trying to be clever, said Hitler was a Roman Catholic. He was born into that faith but rejected it How can you reject baptism? Religion is not a matter of intellectual conviction. It's a matter of birth and magical induction rites.
Joe
Quote:but the bible
Joe
[quote]but the bible in the hands of someone with a fundamentalist It doesn't even need fundamentalism Joe. The lie that the Jews killed Jesus (they didn't, the Romans did), is so embedded in Christian culture that there was never any problem finding enough people to take part in the brutal pogroms against them - including the mechanised one we now call the holocaust. We are seeing similar hatred now emerging amongst ordinary Chistians for Moslems: Islamaphobia bears scary similarities to pre war anti-semitism. Again, it may be cheer-led by fundamentalists but it's the general laity who are chorusing the hatred - albeit in a low key way.
islamphobia
Barak OBama
islamphobia Barak OBama apologized for 2 muslims girls as one of them is a lawyer and is eyptian wearing headscarf and wants to take photos with him. The arrangers prohibited them from taking shots with him as they dont want the media to show that barak obama is from muslim roots. I dont know how these things will make the president free even to be himself and not others and how come they will be honest, so you will not find the perfect man for the perfect job anymore. Even though islam is not frieghtened of any relegion in the word and have answers to everthing , but the reverse in not true and democracy now is not well represented in US election. Really strange and i cant understand .
Unfortunately I haven't
Unfortunately I haven't read much regarding anti-semitism in the early 20th century, but I have heard enough to know it wasn't pretty. Considering that these three religions are worshipping the same god, why are they so hell bent on wiping each other out because of differences in interpretation? It's been going on for thousands of years and at the moment doesn't look to be stopping any time soon. People here are sheep. They're ok until something happens, then someone with a big mouth will stand up and everyone seems to follow - good ol' pack mentality. Unfortunately the one with the big mouth isn't usually the brightest of crayons.
If god created us all, then
If god created us all, then he would have created us all no matter what - with imperfections too, like no common sense. Why would someone want to worship a god that created him with cerebral palsey, or any other disease? And if god is the creator of everything, why don't i see all other living things worshipping him? No, I don't know everything and I do make mistakes - but it's up to our parents to raise us correctly, and instil the required knowledge in us to avoid more mistakes, god doesn't do this for me. If Islam isn't frightened of other religions, why is there an Islamic Republic who denies the holocaust happened and believes the US is the enemy of their religion? Why is there even an Islamic Republic - why not be a secular state if Islam isn't afraid? Can you also explain how Islam has the answers for everything? Yes, the US was formed after bloodshed - are you saying that you like the US, and that they are a strong nation because of that bloodshed? You don't need religion to bring unity, all you need is a common goal. In countries recently it has been Democracy that has done that, or a need to escape from tyranny. People unite to try and save the whales, but I'm sure they wouldn't do any better if religion was the motivator ;-) Abdulksaida
Quote:Yes
Abdulksaida [quote]Yes because God is all powerful, and he asked us to worship him as he created us from first and he gave us this favour , [/quote] Do you not think that it is the other way around? God has in fact been created by people to replicate the power relationships in the material world and thus legitimate and justify them. Thus royalty and aristocracy simply become part of the hierarchy of worth with God at the top and scum like myself at the bottom. Such a hierarchy would of course have a privileged position for popes, priests, rabbis and mullahs alongside the kings and princes. A God of this sort would obviously require worship - because this justifies the exalted position of his or her representatives on earth. All three branches of the Abrahamic faith state that God made man in his image. In fact men (or rather powerful men) made God in their image.
Big C
as i can understand
Big C as i can understand your statements, you want to say that only rich people or relegious peoples as popes, mullas, and rabbists are only in need of God (Allah) to take benefits and reach the high hirarchy in this life and that is incorrect. God is not only for them and any person in power or more rich , he or she will be more subjected to be asked for everything and if u dont know that poor people will enter paradize so quickly before rich people untill those people would be asked about their wealth and what they did with it or how they collect it and if they give to poor and many things wich i cant explain it all now also our prophet mohamed was choosen from God ( Allah ) to be a king with all power and money or prohethood wich is much more difficult and he choose the other. also prophet mohamed (pbuh) asked God to be in paradize with the poor people in this life and whom suffer more and he didnt pray to be with whom have power and money with no morals or just , and beleive me more money and more power needs much caution and it is not always good if u really believe in God unless u will apply his rules which is difficult as a humanbeing is greedy and wants more and more money and he collect them unlawfully in the eyes of relegion and not secular or materialistic measures.
Joe Blogs
Joe Blogs wrote:
[quote]Now, referring to your post in 'Word of No God', I'm not islamophobic by any means - the only thing I'm scared of is Dementia ;-) - but I don't like the idea of marriage between state and religion, mainly because of the implications that religion can bring with it. I wasn't accusing you Joe. It's a christian thing mostly. You've only got to look at some of the posts from some of the faux conservatives on this site. I completely agree with you about links between state and religion. Unfortunately it is embedded in the British constitution and certainly has a de facto presence in countries where it is explicitly not the case like the US . I'd favour the French model I think.
Big c
you prefer france
Big c you prefer france style way , it is not accepted when they forbid headscarves from entering universities as that will increase the counter reaction and will lead more womens angry and try to go back more to thier relegion. always to be dectatorship is not good. also if france is serious , so how come they support israel as sarkozi is a close friend of israel and the whole state was established on a relegion faith of the choosen people in the world and God as they claim promised them of the holy land and to steal the palestinians land. They have not to be hypocrates.
Don't worry, I didn't think
Don't worry, I didn't think I was being accused. I didn't mind the idea when the French tried to bring in the law about no religious symbols (crucifixes, headdress, etc) in public, but I'm sure I didn't get the whole story at the time. I'm quite surprised that noone besides yourself and abdulksaida have posted here. I thought I would get some kind of reaction from the others who are here regularly...
I think BC was trying to
I think BC was trying to say that religion (not just Islam, but Judaism and Christianity too) are set up in the same way as dictatorships - only a few people profit at the expense of the many poor. This seems stupid, as what god would want his people to suffer? If you prayed when you were supposed to, did everything your religion asked, but still suffered anyway, how is this fair when there are others of the same religion living in luxury? Shouldn't they be sharing that if they were 'of true faith'? As for someone saying they don't mind being in paradise with everyone else after death, it seems like lip service as noone can prove that there will be a paradise anyway. Funny that he didn't opt to be with the poor and worthless while he was still in this life.
Abdulksaida
I wasn't
Abdulksaida I wasn't supporting France generally - just on the matter of outward expressions of religion. You'll know from other posts that I am solidly against the apartheid state of Israel - especially as it is a state with an official religion and discriminates against Muslims, Christians and others. With regard to rich and poor, what I'm saying is that religious hierarchies tend to replicate and legitimate the secular hierarchies of feudal times. I don't doubt that your prophet said that he wanted to be with poor in paradise. He may even have believed it. It doesn't alter the fact that his and other religions not only sanction terrible inequality but even advocate taking up arms against those who attempt to change it - eg Afghanistan in the 1980s. |
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As everyone seems intent on preaching the word of some god, I'd figure I'd jump on the band wagon to see what kind of reaction I receive. So here goes:
As far as I'm concerned (and don't forget, this is a democracy, so my opinion is as valid as anyone else's), the idea of worship is insulting and pointless. Taking the body and blood of Christ, religiously motivated circumcision, praying numerous times a day to Mecca, headscarves, crucifixes, Allah, Jehova, etc. It's pointless. If there really was some powerful being ruling over us, do you really think he'd care about what puny humans did? Or whether they would be so self-centred to create something in their image?? Come on, people. So far all religion has done is cause conflict and ignorance, with only a few shining examples - individual (and sometimes groups of) people who were as intent on doing good things for others as they were on praying.
So here's the word of no god: Forget spending hours on prayer and strange archaic rituals, pretending that some symbol, item of clothing or piece of bread could make you a better person, and just be that better person anyway. We know what is right and wrong, just and injust, good and bad, so it's time we forget the crap and just do what's asked of us: Live with one eye on our own wellbeing, and the other on our fellow person's wellbeing. It's surprisingly easy.
In short: Cut the crap and get on with life.