Thread: How I Found God

Originally Posted by YourImaginaryFriend

Well, if you studied buddhism you should have noticed that many of the stories about jesus were stolen from Siddhartha Gautama.
It just blows my mind how sheep-like people can be. Come to your OWN conclusions about God...don't just believe what some religion says...espeacially Christianity.
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I agree. Few religious people really try to seek out the truth. Alot of Christians, muslims and alike are just fine with believing, without actually knowing their religion's history.

People should always find their own truth, and always challenge that what they think they know.

Originally Posted by Neruo

I agree. Few religious people really try to seek out the truth.[/b]

w00t Buddhism!

Originally Posted by Neruo

Well, if you studied buddhism you should have noticed that many of the stories about jesus were stolen from Siddhartha Gautama.[/b]

Actually, it may interest you to know that a lot of the myths and legends and events described inthe bible, especially the New Testament, also crop up in warped and possibly satirised forms in the Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night (More commonly known as "Arabian Nights". I have a complete 8-volume copy, and am reading through it now. It's wonderful.

However, there is some doubt as to where then stories originated from. The Book was originally written, allegedly, in the 8th or 9th century. BUT The tales it countains likely originate from much older Persian folk tales, possibly going back to even before Christ.

I think it serves to show that the myths, legends, and tales of ancient times are all interconnected. They would pas by word of mouth from one culture to the next; a sort of "chinese whispers" type effect; and eve ntually become incorporated in each others' culture.

Originally Posted by Neruo

How many people turn to god by a dream or some other freak occurance? One in 100.000? Besides that question why god doesn't give everyone great 'visions', and the question of why god doesn't just sends his vision more clearly then by a dream, there is the fact that if 1000 of 100.000 people at some point of their life have a dream about 'god', one in a hunderd is a more then likely number to actually have such a seemingly unlikely event that makes that person turn to 'god', 'allah' or some other over popular lie.

Also, some people are more likely to accept anything. I am afraid it is true that alot of people 'need' religion, or some other system..
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I do not "need" religion. Religion is something that has found me other than me looking for it. I am a very wise person, i do not mean to sound conceted, see i cant even spell it, but i am wise and i do not except anything. I have come to my own conculsions on God and what i have been lead to are that there is a God form in some way.

There may not be a heaven or hell, there may not even be anything after life...but there is something during life that no one can explain.

And i hate all these "scientist" explaining the universe..

Were are in the physical universe. If God interfers with us some how there will be a Physical reaction in our universe. Some "scientist" will be able to explain how it happened and use that as prove of no God, But thats cause we are in the physical plane right now.

+++++WARNING: rant about bigots follows this warning+++++

Disclaimer: this rant, although instigated by posts in this thread, applies to a much broader context. It is my opinion that everyone is bigoted somehow, myself included. I have a problem, however, with people who behave in a way that shows how superior they believe they are. This rant is about those people, in the context of religious beliefs.

(Begin Rant)
It's amazing how much hostility some people seem to have towards religion, Christianity in particular. It's as though they had some devastating experience involving a Christian and have since condemned any religious person, especially Christians. I've always had a problem with such bigots... religious or not.

So you don't agree with Christianity? So what? You think that makes you superior?

You believe in science? So what? Islamic nations have contributed and preserved much of what makes up modern science and knowledge. Will you blindly hate religious people, regardless of their contributions to the world's knowledge?

You think because you have personally come to an epiphany that god doesn't exist that you're superior to everyone who believes otherwise? What makes your epiphany so much "better" than theirs? What makes you so amazingly intelligent and wise for coming to this conclusion?

You think all religious people, but especially Christians, are dumb followers (even though you're wrong), so you and anyone else who doesn't believe in religious teachings are superior? So you're telling us that you IN NO WAY are a follower? You mean that you test every scientific tidbit that flows your way? You disagree with all your education simply because you haven't been able to prove it firsthand? You mean you don't comform at all? You have no stereotypes? You make no un-verified assumptions?

Because you thought about religion for a while before deciding it's BS, that means everyone who believes in religion doesn't think at all? You're so full of it! Your intolerant opinions are as biased as a Christian who blindly follows what his Ma and Pa taught him as a child! Everyone else must be wrong because there's no way you could be wrong. That's how you think, isn't it? That's certainly how you come across.

And before you want to get on my case for being a blind religious follower, just keep in mind that I disdain all those blind bigots, religious and non-religious alike. I equally disdain the Christian who thinks he's utterly right, looking down upon everyone who doesn't believe as he does.

It doesn't matter one bit how you came to your decision about religion. You're no better than the person who thinks otherwise.

It's religion. You can't prove or disprove it scientifically, so believing or not believing in it have nothing whatever to do with a person's knowledge or IQ or ability to think for themselves.

If you're going to have intelligent conversations about religion, you might want to try leaving your personal biases at the door. (Blue Meanie's really good at this, for example... leaving his biases at the door, I mean).

If you're going to come into a discussion, or start a discussion, with the assumptions floating around that you are absolutely right and everyone else is absolutely wrong, you're showing how bigoted and biased you really are. And why? Because you came to a certain conclusion on an untestable hypothesis? Hooray for you.

Sure, people's reasoning for believing something may arguably be dumb, ignorant, un-learned, but that doesn't make their core belief any less valid than a person who's reasoning is smart, knowledgeable, and well-learned.

A person has a spiritually significant dream and you think that because you haven't had anything similar, or because you have and didn't see it as significant, that they must be stupid, superstitious followers? Now, I'm a bit confused here... how exactly does your lack of spirituality make someone else's spiritual experiences any less important than your non-spiritual experiences? What makes you so intolerant that you wish to bash anyone who believes in something you don't?

Because, in all honesty, on the grounds of religion, you are no better than anyone else. At all. So get over yourself.
(End Rant)

I think I'll actually post my responses to particulars of this thread in another post... this one seems long enough.

the foolish will be made to be wise and the wise to be foolish.what makes you a wise man home boy?I bet youve never even had to really live!

dropout14,
I think your dream about God being on your cell phone doesn't seem interesting at all... but your dream about God and Jesus and the number thing... that's pretty cool. Regardless what other people said in this thread, it's pretty unlikely that by random chance, you would pick two numbers that would correspond exactly to a set of verses in the Bible that describe your dream exactly. Is it God? I dunno. But it's a cool experience, nonetheless, and I'd probably take it as significant if I had it.


Neruo,
On your comment, "Everyone that believes in their own god is more likely to 'really' see their god in their dream, thus making a specific god totally unlikely." I totally agree with the first part of this statement. You're much more likely to experience a god you already believe in than to experience something you don't believe in or at least think is possible. However, I don't think that makes the existence of a god or gods any less likely. It just means that dreams and other experiences may be non-divinely inspired. If I believe in little people and I happen to see one, that doesn't mean they don't exist. It also doesn't mean they do exist. I may be imagining them, explaining optical illusions as things they're not, hallucinating, etc. But the premise that I already believed in little people before seeing them has nothing whatever to do with whether or not they actually exist. Oh, and I also don't typically categorize dreams about a god as significantly as I categorize a waking experience of a god.


YourImaginaryFriend,

I would love to hear about the in-depth research you did on other religions.
I mean, you must have studied each one for years and years before coming to the conclusion that Christ is the ONLY "real help or solution". Kind of weird and untrue. Shows that you didn't study a thing.[/b]

Just because someone comes to the conclusion that a specific god is the only real help or solution (for them), doesn't mean they didn't seek religious answers elsewhere. You're assuming that dropout14 didn't study at all because he came to a conclusion you disagree with. Is everyone who disagrees with you automatically ignorant? I've met people who really did try other religions, for years, before concluding that Christianity really is the only way... I disagree with them, but I don't automatically think they're lying about their search for truth in other religions, nor do I think their conclusion is a bad one.


Neruo said,

Some people would ignore everything or make up their own stuff, with no proof.
Not isolated, such people are Christians. To bad that some of the people that with knowledge, good observation, would end up with the same conclusions, in a world of indoctrination will just take the easy way, follow some religion.
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Do you realize how ridiculous you are being? For one thing, Christians are not the only people in the world who come to their own conclusions without physical proof. Let's take you for example. You think Christians ignore everything or make up their own stuff. Would you mind directing me to the data you collected when you interviewed every person ever to exist, categorizing everyone who ignored something they disagreed with or came up with a conclusion based more on thought than on observation? I'd really love to see how you came to the conclusion that every Christian fit into the blind/imaginative category, while all non-religious people were open-minded and conformed only to scientifically determined and re-determined facts.


Meh, I had some other things so say, but I've lost steam, so maybe later.

Ta ta!

Originally Posted by bendstringz

the foolish will be made to be wise and the wise to be foolish.what makes you a wise man home boy?I bet youve never even had to really live!
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Dude i am 18 and have probably had a harder life than you. Im white, live in the the somewhat ghetto, got mugged by a guy wiht a knife when i was 10, had to go to the trail and go on the witness stand, got my house broken into when i was home alone and saw the guy, Have a sleeping and ddepression disorder that i never got over til recently, missed maybe 50 days a year of school because of it but i got by cause im smart and just have that in my genes. I dropped out of school because of it. I am the man of my house, we live in a 3 story house where i have to do all the man jobs because my dad cheated on my mom and is rich as fuck but we live in a shithole of a house......had a shit load of deaths in the family with in 2 years, lost all of my grandparents. Have to live iwht a fake dad who really doesnt do shit for me. Barely have any friends because of me dropping out. Have a social problem when i get alot of panic attacks ..............do you want me to go on?

My life Finally started getting turned around when God shoud himself to me. You have no idea what my life is like. I finally can hold down a job and do shit around the house wihtout being stressed. If someone were to break in to my house again i would fucking charge them. Fuck man I AM wise after all of the hsit i have been through and have had a fucking hard life, do not tell me i havent

And another thing, a certain GOD did not show himself to me. He showed me there Is a God by the dream. Explain all of the damn Precog dreams i have now

I found Jesus! You, too, can find Him here!

Seriously though. Dropout, I'm very sorry for what you've gone through. But, it's not abnormal or exceptional by any means. Most people have had extremely traumatic events in their past, myself included, and do not become born-agains. Your narrative, while inducing sympathy, is not exceptional in nature.

Your "precog" dreams we have no evidence of, so asking us to "explain" these "events" is kind of pointless. In any case, precog stuff is largely a product of retrospective and selective memory.

As for your life being turned around when you "found god"? Not very convincing. It ponly makes sense that, if somebody makes aradical change in their life or faces one imposed upon them, they need a "coathanger" upon which to pin their success or responsibility. It helps absolve the blame, and provides a seemingly outyside source, a handhold onwhich to grab. Kind of futile, since the handhold is imaginary in the first place.

But you see bluemeanie...Its not that God is a "coathanger" it is that he To me he is the move likely cause of "everything" and science is a form of God

He is not the only one who has found God this way, Blue.
I have heard stories of real thugs who changed when they found God, and of brocken people who have been healed emotional and physicly by God's grace.

what makes it so unbilievable to you that God actually is helping him?

Originally Posted by Universal

...He came to the realization (as far as he was concerned) that he had been living a satanic life and needed to find Jesus...He got a very short haircut...
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Such a sad story!

Originally Posted by Universal

why do you trust some men more then others, Neruo?
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Well, some men are psychos and idiots.

Originally Posted by Universal

+++++WARNING: rant about bigots follows this warning+++++
...all that...
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Yeah, pretty much.

Originally Posted by Universal

...what makes it so unbilievable to you that God actually is helping him?
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Specifically the unbelievability of god.

what makes God unbelivable?

Originally Posted by Keeper

what makes God unbelivable?
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The inherent contradiction that arises given the definition of god and the universe that we observe. Also, there's no reason to believe in the idea of god. God is an invention of equally unbelievable religions. Not only that, but there are thousands of different religions that all make different claims about what god(s) did what. There is no compelling reason to pick your religion and there is even less a reason to pick it over another religion. Furthermore the claims of these religions have been consistently debunked via logic and research by people much smarter, much better equipped and able to understand the universe than the tribals that made up your religion in the first place. On top of that, one day in an effort to humour the idea and try to "find god" as it was once suggested I did, I came away feeling only like an idiot for even giving the idea a chance.

Read closer next time and you would have had almost all of that information already. Thanks.

I'm not talking about religion.

Why do you think there is no God. Please give your scientific evedence.

What the heck do you want me to give you?

Why do you think there is no Flying Spaghetti Monster. Please give your scientific evedence.

You said that the Idea of God was false.

now, proove that you are right if you can. After all, you have to beleive what you do from some place or some how, so what is it?

Originally Posted by Keeper

You said that the Idea of God was false.

now, proove that you are right if you can. After all, you have to beleive what you do from some place or some how, so what is it?
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Actually you're mixing up who has the burden of proof, here, but I'll go ahead and answer anyway.

How's this?

The inherent contradiction that arises given the definition of god and the universe that we observe. Also, there's no reason to believe in the idea of god. God is an invention of equally unbelievable religions. Not only that, but there are thousands of different religions that all make different claims about what god(s) did what. There is no compelling reason to pick your religion and there is even less a reason to pick it over another religion. Furthermore the claims of these religions have been consistently debunked via logic and research by people much smarter, much better equipped and able to understand the universe than the tribals that made up your religion in the first place. On top of that, one day in an effort to humour the idea and try to "find god" as it was once suggested I did, I came away feeling only like an idiot for even giving the idea a chance.

Is there a flaw in this reasoning? Also, please answer my Flying Spaghetti Monster related question.

...

You are not reading what I'm posting, Mark

I asked you why you dont beleive in God, not a religion.

so, why dont you?

Originally Posted by Keeper

...

You are not reading what I'm posting, Mark

I asked you why you dont beleive in God, not a religion.

so, why dont you?
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Yes, I know. Because god is an invention of a religion I don't believe in. Because the idea of god is illogical. Because there's no compelling reason nor evidence to suggest that there is. I really hate having to type the same thing over and over.

Is there a flaw in this reasoning? Also, please answer my Flying Spaghetti Monster related question.

Originally Posted by dreammask

dropout14,
I think your dream about God being on your cell phone doesn't seem interesting at all... but your dream about God and Jesus and the number thing... that's pretty cool. Regardless what other people said in this thread, it's pretty unlikely that by random chance, you would pick two numbers that would correspond exactly to a set of verses in the Bible that describe your dream exactly. Is it God? I dunno. But it's a cool experience, nonetheless, and I'd probably take it as significant if I had it.
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Like I said, one in a hunderd verses sure as hell could be seen as Somesort of a message. And maybe mr Dropout picked it up somewhere.

And Why would god send a message trough a dream? In the bible he only does that a few times to my knowledge, yet talks to people all the time.

Neruo,
On your comment, "Everyone that believes in their own god is more likely to 'really' see their god in their dream, thus making a specific god totally unlikely." I totally agree with the first part of this statement. You're much more likely to experience a god you already believe in than to experience something you don't believe in or at least think is possible. However, I don't think that makes the existence of a god or gods any less likely. [/b]

Ah! But I didn't said that! I said the chance of one Christian / muslim / ect god being correct would be more unlikely, the god that thousands other do Not have dreams about, for they have their dreams about their god.

A dream shouldn't be enough to turn to some dusty old book, especially if one does not know it well, and if one has never looked at it properly without taking it for a fact 'god (christian) is real, cuz I had a dream!11".

It just means that dreams and other experiences may be non-divinely inspired. If I believe in little people and I happen to see one, that doesn't mean they don't exist. It also doesn't mean they do exist. I may be imagining them, explaining optical illusions as things they're not, hallucinating, etc. But the premise that I already believed in little people before seeing them has nothing whatever to do with whether or not they actually exist.[/b]

But it has Everything to do with you seeing them, in a dream or in some other halugenic state of mind.

Oh, and I also don't typically categorize dreams about a god as significantly as I categorize a waking experience of a god.[/b]

Oh how weird, I mean dreams are all like send by god, like last night, when I dreamt about running around in circles slapping midgets in the face with a fish.

-

Dreams = hell of a lot fun. But Dreams do two things and two things alone:

-They consist of totally random crap your mind is trowing around.
-They consist of some subconcious desires or toughts. Like I dream alot about my parents because they broke up. Still, if I see my dad killing my mom (note that I didn't), that does't really mean my dad is a murderer.

So, all this topic sais about mr Dropout is that he has some sort of subconsious interst in christian religion. Maybe all the happy people on tv singing their happy songs got to you.

Originally Posted by Neruo

Maybe all the happy people on tv singing their happy songs got to you.
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If you're happy and you know it, praise the lord.

your still not answering me

Originally Posted by Mark75

Yes, I know. Because god is an invention of a religion I don't believe in.
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and you knowq this ... how?

Because the idea of god is illogical.
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why?

Because there's no compelling reason nor evidence to suggest that there is.
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actually there is, but continue ...

I really hate having to type the same thing over and over.
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same here. Now, answer my question

Is there a flaw in this reasoning?
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yes, there is

Also, please answer my Flying Spaghetti Monster related question.
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I must have mist that one. what is your pastry-god question?

Originally Posted by Keeper

and you knowq this ... how?
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You've gotta be kidding me. I'm not even going to humour that with an answer.

Originally Posted by Keeper

why?
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God is almost always defined as being both omnipotent and all loving. The universe we observe is not what such a god would create. Also, the idea that god is necessary to explain existence is redundant considering that the premise is that the universe could not have always existed, therefore was created by a being that has always existed. I would again cite the lack of compelling reason to believe in such a god. I would again cite the lack of reason to select any one particular brand of god over another.

Originally Posted by Keeper

actually there is, but continue ...
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That statement alone is worthless.

Originally Posted by Keeper

same here. Now, answer my question
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You're not the one that should be complaining about unanswered questions.

Originally Posted by Keeper

yes, there is
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That statement alone is worthless.

Originally Posted by Keeper

I must have mist that one. what is your pastry-god question?
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I don't know how you missed it, considering that I asked you to answer it twice after I originally posted it.

Why do you think there is no Flying Spaghetti Monster. Please give your scientific evedence.

Originally Posted by Keeper

your still not answering me
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The question being...?

and you knowq this ... how?[/b]

And YOU know this.. how? A 1940 year-old book?

Anyhow, Keeper, you are actually asking things we allready explained in great detail, why god is unlikely. Want the awnser, look though the posts on this forum.