God, do you believe in him?

[Dr. Greenthumb]

they are dinosaur bones but the swift process in which fossils are made is a rare thing. it requires a quick trapping of a creature in order for the bones to be preserved properly. Kent Hoven's explanation for this is that the quick flooding from the 40day flood refered to in the bible is a great explanation for this, especially since most fossils come from the same time period. it also gives an explanation for how some animals were trapped with food still in their mouths.

His explanation for the extinction of dinosaurs is the worldwide flood described in Genesis. this is also the reason for the separation of the continents, underground volcanos, grand canyon. Such a quick flooding would have flooded a large part of the continents and cause quick erosion that may would have trapped the animals. it also explains the number of shark teeth that are found in northern american land-locked areas.

[Darth Inhaler]

Religion is just a safe haven for people who dont understand/are scared of things. You all think your going to heaven and whatnot but you could just end up in a box in the ground.

You may think you're just going to end up in a box in the ground, but you could end up going to HELL

Now the first statement you made I totally disagree with. Religion is NOT just a safe haven or for people who are afraid or don't understand.
Most of the time, a person is born into that religion and just sticks with it because they're too lazy to believe in anything else.
I don't see how it's a "safe haven". I fully understand alot of things, I've done reasarch in science, I know all about evolution, the big bang, cell splitting, all these theories. I'm not afraid of any of it. I believe in God because that's what I feel is right, it's what my gut tells me is right.
You're different than I, your gut says there is no God and that's fine. I don't believe there's any psychological reasoning in believe in a religion or not, it all depends on the person.


And there are SO MANY religions, you have to be specific about which one you're talking about.
I find buddhism to be one of the best religions because of their morality and open mindness to other religions.

[Dr. Greenthumb]

i think you both need to determine the difference between religion and faith and set these to apart when having the discussion.

[Darth Inhaler]

a religion is basically a structured faith

there are many differen kinds of faiths, therefore there are many different religions

Believing in one God is a faith
Catholocism, Protestantism, Judaism are all religions

anyone disagree?

[Zen]

I believe in God. Probably not in the way most of people do but that's fine. Everything came from something, it wasn't just always here, and that something I believe is God. God essentially has always been here. Or maybe it's that he has never been here, and that is why we are here. In the Christian faith and I"m sure others, it says Man was made in Gods image. If that's true, maybe this is why we cannot see, feel, hear, taste, or smell God.

Of course though there are those that say the exact opposite, that they HAVE experienced moments where they have felt or saw or experienced in a way, God. This leads me to believe that God IS in fact here, but not in a tangible sense. Not in the sense where one day you will be walking down the street and see someone with long white hair and flowing robes riding a giant horse and suddenly say "Oh, Hey God!" Although I am told that this is somewhat like that of attaining enlightenment. It is a sudden and precise realization. God exists in everything. ANything and everything you could possible conceptualize is what God exists in. Even in the things you cannot conceptualize, haha I should say ESPECIALLY in the things you cannot coneptualize, for that in itself I believe, is God.

If anyone has seen Stigmata, the Dead Sea scrolls describe this. Lift a Stone and I shall be there, Split a Piece of Wood and I shall be there. That is essentially God. In the Matrix, Morpheus asks Neo, "
Do you think that's air you're breathing?" It's not, it's God. The illusion of man could be that we believe it is just in fact air. But what is it that seperates Air from anyother kind of vapor? Chemicals composition, molecular structure you say, yes that's all very true. But there is Oxygen found in a multiplicity of things, why can we not breathe than anything but air?

There was a saying I heard a while back, If there was no God, then Man would find a means of creating One.

God is the immaterial counterpart to Man. One cannot exist without the other. The simple and obvious fact that we are here, is evidence enough that there is a God. Sure if when we die we just sit in a box in the ground and rot. DUH!! Go exhume a corpse thats been burried for 20 years, YEAH it's STILL THERE!! But who's to say that the universe doesn't cease to exist as soon as you die? Does life still go on after you're dead? If time is relative... then what is the relativeness of time to your personal being, everythinng that makes you, You, after you have passed on? You cease to age, and therefore time ultimately stops. Or ceases to exist much like yourself. What is the universe if it is without time. It's nothing. It's a still frame, but there still has to be Time for there to a moment able of capturing that still frame.

Is there an afterlife? Probably not. Is there an afterdeath? Probably so! Are you going to spend the rest of eternity studying the intricacies of upholstered oaken two-by-four without the use of your eyeballs, or even your brain?! Probably not! If a tree fell in the woods but you weren't around to hear it, would that sound even exist for you? Or anyone for that matter if they weren't around to hear it. If 10,000 people suddenly cried and screamed out in death, and nobody told you, would those people even be dead to you? Who's to say they were ever alive in the first place.

So people have told you about God, if you aren't around to feel or experience it than to you there is no God. But ask yourself this, how can you deny that existance if you've already heard of it. Perhaps God isn't something you've been trying to experience because you believe once you accept the possibilty of their being a God, then you are just like all the others, and you want to be seperate from that. But you cannot seperate yourself from the World. You cannot seperate yourself from the air you breath or the ground you walk on or the skin that you wear. So, imagine for a second if God was all that. How could you then say that there is no sound coming from that tree?

Sorry I'm sure that just sounded like a lot of preachy bullshit. It wasn't meant to be, but recently I've been having very strong feelings on this subject and I just realized this topic was here. And just because I said I believe in God, doens't make me some sort of religious freak. I believe in the arts as well as the sciences and most other schools of thought. I believe in the human mind, the human body, spirit, and soul and the unlimited potential that can be unleashed through the synergizing of these four elements. Elements is a unique word to use here indeed, because one can argue that there are only 3 essential elemnts in the human self, or that there are only the 4 elements of nature, or 5 in Chinese thought, though in Scientific reasoning there are over 150! (I think that's right). But all an element is is essentially something that can be broken down no further, or something pure and free of anything other than itself.

Anyways I'm rambling haha I probably didn't even make that profound of a point

Peace~

[Darth Inhaler]

Whole
Lee
SHIT

I can't even begin to comment on what you said

There was something that Caro said in a different forum somewhere that stuck with me

it was something about your dreams connecting you to the spiritual world or something. Maybe she's right. Maybe you're mind and spirit leave your body during sleep or death and you go to a different place. It may not be a heaven or hell or limbo or with any God. It could be your own artificial nirvana, what YOU think paradise is. Maybe if you honestly believe that after you die there is nothing, then you will actually cease to exist after you die, and if you DO believe in an afterlife, that's where your mind will take you, Maybe God is created in the minds of man and when you die you think you're with God, but it's really just an illusion in your mind.

There's one thing I can't fathom though; eternal life
I believe in God and heaven and hell, but I really don't want to have eternal life. Can you imagine that? No end to your life, just continuity.
But I can't imagine eternal death either. I can't imagine myself not being. I can't imagine my constant mentality being completely obliterated.
Maybe ghosts are real. Maybe they are the dead spirits of people who just float around watching the lives of other. Maybe there IS reincarnation.

I think that's something that would need it's own thread
Where do you go when you die?
You can ask all the proffesionals and scientists and experts in the world, and you will get competely different answers. Nobody knows that answer. Nobody alive at least.

[Dr. Greenthumb]

way to go Zen you mentally crippled yet another weedguru member.

[Zen]

Hah thanks for the compliment Doc. And on a side not I'm glad I didn't join this topic till now because reading over some of the things people have posted earlier in it, it makes me laugh real hard. Some of the points are just so silly, and some to the point where they actualy contradict themselves.

For instance, about wether or not God could create someone even more powerful than himself? Perhaps that creation was Man.

But That's all I"m going to say to posts prior to this because the rest would jsut be a waste of recirculated breath.


Peace~

[Dr. Greenthumb]

if i remember correctly you view the bible as a collection of stories and moral but there is a verse somewhere that basically comes out and say not to challenge God with stupid questions.

[Zen]

Now what exactly would the bibles deffinition of stupid be I wonder.


Peace~

[Darth Inhaler]

questions like
Could God make a sandwich so big that even He could not eat it all?

hahaha

[BigDave]

questions like
Could God make a sandwich so big that even He could not eat it all?

hahaha

Whys that stupid? If Gods all powerful then he should be able to do anything

[Zen]

Perhaps when it says stupid to ask such theoretical questoins that don't really have any significant meaning to them. It merely serves to fill the mind with pointless and unproductive thought, leaving the individual lost in aimless and hazy thought filled space, which detaches the person from the quiet natural feeling of the nature around himself.

Peace~

[haithy]

*Everyone Stands Up & Starts Applauding*...Well said Zen, that was propably the best thing ive ever heard. Hell its gonna be a part of my msn nickname. Seriously...
that question u(big dave) said meant absloutley (sp) nothing

[BigDave]

Why does it mean absolutely nothing?

If God is all powerful then he must be able to create a sandwich that even he cant eat but if he cant eat it then how is he all powerful?

Religion contradicts its self too much to be taken seriously