Your right about that. God is a merciful God, but I was always told that he punishes for disobedience, thats where I got that from. At home, I always heard statements like "God's going to punish you for feeling/acting that way" or "God will pull his wrath on you".
Noone really wants to debate religion though! I know I dont.
Its free will. You make your choices (or someone else does it for you) and you suffer the consequences. Like living in the middle of an earthquake zone. So sad, but it was an earthquake zone, one didn't HAVE to live there. Like yellowstone, the ultimate ticking bomb.
And its a new ice age, but not as we know it.
Don't need Satan. Humans with their free will are enough to stuff things up without any help. If Yellowstone doesn't get us global warming will get us and so on. It is now at the emergency stage. Sorry guys too late now. I did a physics project on it once and the actual results of CO2 levels are far higher than I thought possible then.
Quit dreaming !
`God` is just a concept.
People might make use of this concept in different ways.
But either way, `God` is just a word.
`God` is NO entity.
You could call the word `god` ( I let go of the capital G, which is on purpose -to stress my point) a practical device, created by humans.
It may satisfy certain needs - often it`s just about the basic instinct of some people to control the lives of other people.
As I see it, especially those people belonging to the major monotheistic religions tend to be irrational and not very tolerant.
As for the particular group, calling themselves christians, I say
`mostly hypocrites at heart !
Uuuups, I should add that I, Rufus, am from northern Europe ( Denmark - Scandinavia ) - fortunately a highly secular region
Also, there are lots of Lutherans in Scandanavia Rufus.
Say what you want, but I dont believe God is indeed a concept......but actuality very REAL!!!
God is Good!!!
Well even if you don't believe in a conventional god one must have gained an impression whatever has happened before the big bang, all the laws of physics, chemistry etc must have something at the back of them creating them. Call it universal consciousness, god whatever there has to be more to this plane of existance than you are born, live for a short while, die and thats it. I just don't want to find out at first hand just yet.
Yes, God is just a word; and in a sense another word would do. No word can express god. He cannot be pointed out…he’s the indefinable totality and more; hidden and yet always manifest…that great eternal mystery! God cannot be known through concepts; he cannot be proved by science.
His existence is intuitively felt; his spirit move the breeze; causes the sun to rise and the planets to turn. To know god you must enter into a relationship with him; feel his presence and let him guide you.
But I’m mostly a hypocrite at heart. lol
Yeah, you`re still stuck !
You do a nice job of doing exactly, what you claim can`t be done . You point out god, nicely and very precisely !
You experience things ( everyone does) ; the breeze, sunrises etc.
Then you need a cause for these things to happen; someone or something must cause it.
The world can`t just be there on its own account , or can it ?
Of course it can !
If big bang happened, it just happened !
Big bang is indeed fantastic, but it doesn`t have to have happened because something made it happen
Seems that you don`t really get my point,
It`s not only a question of the word `god` being just a word, that could be substituted by another word like `rubberboot ` ,
It`s a question of no entity behind the concept `god`, and no necessity for a word at all.
God is an arbitrary word for NOTHING.
Pheneomena cannot always be explained , but that does not mean, they must have a first cause.
The world just happens
Fine by me
Note to Miss New Zealand;
You`re right ; there are a lot of lutherans in Scandinavia. However numbers may not tell the actual situation.
In Denmark it`s like this: 85% of the population are members of the
` Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church`. Less than 10 % of those ever set foot in a church. Most people care so little about religion, that they don`t even bother quit their formal membership ( I personally did quit)
It`s a cultural thing.
Ups , sorry , I was quoting Quick Duck
How do we know there really was a "big bang", maybe there was more of a quiet gathering together of particles?
How is it known? The universe is not at absolute zero which is the temperature where all atomic motion stops. The energy left over from the big bang is still with us because the temperature of space is actually around 3K (or 270*C) not 0K or 273.15*C
Note temperature is actually a measurement of average kinetic energy of molecules. Space is in fact not empty. There are rarefied traces of gas, dust etc.