why do you believe ?

wasn't sure where to post this if it needs to be moved Please do
now Every Christen or any other person from any religon Should stop and think does this make anymore sense then other things?
What I mean is nowadays the Greek/Roman Religon of the Past is now regarded as Myths or fairy tales....... What makes the stories of an other religon anymore acurate? One thing people seem to Forget is People wrote the bible and Other Books like it! not God! what Makes it right?
many people will tell you God told them to write it... Did it?(I refer to God as it because I have no Idea if a Higher being has a gender) how do we know this? is Tradition the Only thing Keeping People Believing it? your Parents Believed it so you must to? Why is What is Passed down right?It took me a while for me to Realize what I believe and I am still not sure but I have pretty Much gotton rid of the Bible I was brought up A Catholic and I struggled to find what I think is the truth and what makes more sense I was Always into Science and I always found myself Trying to Keep the 2 things separate. but there came a time when I couldn't anymore I needed to know what I believed and I came up with this God made Life. and gave it the Amazing ability to Change to help itself Adapt and Get better. This amazing Ability resulted in many Creatures including us!(I still have problems with this Mainly Because the existence of God Rasies even more questions) I am asking you to find out what you believe also don't Listen to your Parents on this! find OUT what YOU believe and what makes sense TO YOU find yourself not just follow traditon.
if it turns out to be what you think is the truth thats fine but don't be a follower think for yourself and Take known facts into Acountانا ملحد. يحق لي أن ألفت محمدEdited by DC85, : No reason given.

Interesting topic, but I'm moving to Faith and Belief as it does not deal directly with issues of Biblical accuracy or inerrancy.

Thread moved here from the The Bible: Accuracy and Inerrancy forum.

It seems that the best a lot of people (of any creed) can do in terms of thinking for themselves is determining who to follow. For some reason they reject the idea of coming up with new ideas themselves. Although it is quite a lot of work; much more so than seppting into line with somebody else's dogma.

Although I was pretty much brainwashed (hehe) from a child to believe in God, I still asked questions and had lots of doubts. I still have doubts today about lots of issues with creation/evolution, mainly due to a lack on knowledge, which I believe is the reason the whole creation/evolution debate still goes on: and will do till the end of time. However one thing I know for sure is I made the decision to follow Jesus on my own accord, not just cos' it was the done thing in my family.
There is such a thing called faith and I adore it. I cannot prove it but I can feel it, sence it and dwell in it. It's like Love. Have you ever fallen in love? You can't prove your love for someone with facts, you just know. I know God is real, not a myth. I just take a step back and look at the big picture and realise.Oh yeh and these guys have helped out heaps too!
Answers | Answers in Genesis [This message has been edited by Spud, 05-14-2003]

I did. Came to a different conclusion. Sorry.I'm glad faith is fine with you but I never felt anything like what you described. Faith never sat well with me because my church kept saying I could "know" god through faith. How anyone could know something though a process that means "not knowing" I could never figure out.

Yeh I understand what you mean crashfrog. It's not just faith though. I have faith in God, why then am I browsing creation/evolution debate sites for information? I believe the Bible is the Word of God and to this day I have seen no true facts proving anything in the Bible to be false. I keep searching for a floor but I just can't seem to find one ------------------
When all else fails, anything remaining, no matter how unlikley, is probable.

I think the thing is, there's differing degrees of truth. Is the bible an accurate historical narrative? Not really. Does it have to be?Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet doesn't have to be a literal account to express a truth about lovers and society. That it rings true in a lot of ways is a testament to Shakespeare as a writer. Picasso called art "a lie that tells us the truth". Couldn't the bible be the same thing?I would point to a great deal of language in the bible (certain "mystic" numbers, repetition of phrases, etc) that, in other contemporary literature, is used in situations where the story may not be true, but the moral is. (For instance, fairy tales.)Even today we use that language. If I tell you what my dad calls a "no-sh*t story", typified by the introductory token "Now, this is no sh*t!" you know that the story is of course, sh*t - a total fabrication. Nonetheless these stories are told to impart truths.The bible has a lot of things wrong on the face of it. Four-legged insects. A canopy over the earth like a tent. Striped reeds causing spotted sheep. I don't think that calls into question the lessons of the bible no more than it would when Jesus teaches the parable of the Good Samaritan, even though the story he tells probably didn't actually happen.Things can be mythically true, in that sense. The bible joins a lot of other great literature in using lies to tell us the truth.

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Oh yeh and these guys have helped out heaps too!
Answers | Answers in Genesis

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What have they done for you? Have you looked at any impartial sites that offer plain information, as opposed to arguments for a preconceived conclusion?[This message has been edited by zephyr, 05-14-2003]

I don't know about that........ The Bible seems to me that it was written to answer questions people had and it has worked for along time until like 100 and something years ago. I do admit it teaches many life lessons that are important. but how can anyone truly say they know that everything in it is the truth? I think a matter of tradition has to with alot of it your Parents believed and so do you and it carrys on and on. now I must admit it took me Along time to get the thoughts that where fed to me since I was a small child out
was this what I really felt or is it what I am afraid not to believe?
that can be confusing.
now I also do Realize these Stories comfort us we like to think we will live on when we are dead. but the truth is we don't know if we will.......... and that makes a certain amount of fear.
and I guess the Main focus is Creation and life. if there is a higher power did it create every single thing or did it create one thing and let it evolve? I see Evolution as the most logical and most soported idea. now on the statement of Love. I doubt there is such a feeling. its more of an animal attraction and we Just called it "love" I to have felt this Attraction very deeply toward other people (think about it) (I view people as just advanced animals not as Better creatures as a matter of fact I am writing a book on human behavior and how we are still very much animal)

AiG has answered a lot of questions I have had over the years zephyr. Still, send some good links my way on any impartial sites that offer plain information. I will be more than happy to read them.------------------
When all else fails, anything remaining, no matter how unlikley, is probable.

I'd be curious to know whether AiG actually "answered" your questions, or merely provided anti-evolution diatribes and assorted non-evidence based articles that made you feel comfortable by catering to your preconceptions. However, to give you the benefit of the doubt, and take you at your word, you might find these websites interesting: Evolution and the Fossil Record. This is a nice, general overview of the actual fossil evidence for evolution. It's a joint effort by the American Geological Institute and the Paleontological Society. It was designed as a teaching and general reference for non-specialists.Actionbioscience.org's Issues in Evolution page. This page contains links to a number of articles outlining some of the key concepts in evolution - including a few controversies or new ideas. Although limited in scope, the articles are all generally accessible to an educated non-specialist.The homepage of the Leakey Foundation. A readable (although the articles can get technical) reference on human origins — actual, up-to-the minute (more or less) on what’s happening in research on human evolution.You will, I hope, note that none of these sites have any mention of creationism - these are NOT anti-creationist websites. They are "impartial sites that offer plain information". On the assumption that you were serious, if you have specific topical areas that you'd be interested in pursuing or learning about, or specific questions you'd like answered, I can probably come up with a number of different sites or articles discussing those specific issues. Let me know.[This message has been edited by Quetzal, 05-15-2003]

I've never really understood this fear of death thing.If there is nothing ... then we won't know.If there is something thenwe carry on in some other form.Either way I don't really see a need for fear.

I believe that the fear of death in humans is proof that we have an inner spirit, soul, and conscience. No other species on the earth has the fear of death or is concerned with it, they survive by avoiding it through instinct, and not all are successful even at that. We see where in some species that one of a mating pair is killed directly after mating, therefore proof of no consciencness of death or fear of it in other species. As I said, other species will avoid death through instincts, however they will not, as some humans do, have a nervous breakdown over, or be consumed by, the fear of it.Why do most humans have a fear of death? It's because we have been given the ability to "know"(to understand things and have a conscience). Know what? To know that life is awesome and must surely have a purpose and have been given meaning by something or somebody. The fear of death I belive is developed in the conscience as a result of a belief that there is a purpose to life in all its awesomeness. And to die without finding that purpose brings great fear to some, thinking that they may have missed out on, misunderstood, or even somehow went against that very purpose. Without a doubt, the foundation for evolution IS Nilallism( Nothing working on nothing by nothing, through nothing, for nothing, produced everything) and it is an extremely hard foundation to swallow and very difficult for the human mind to accept, in that it gives absoluetly no purpose to life. Knowing the mechanisms of life is interesting , however it pales in comparison to knowing the purpose of life. The purpose of this life extraodinaire is what the human spirit, soul, and conscience craves to know, and until it is found by those who seek it, the fear of death will always manifest itself in our species. Some would also describe this fear as not of death, but of losing life. Life is what we know and to lose what we know to an unknown brings fear to some. If one can find the purpose to life then it makes the unknown known and therefore fear is no longer neccessary. Of course, if one is unconcerned with or does not believe there is a purpose to life, for their entire life, they have no need to fear death either, or do they? I guess it all depends what the purpose to life is, if there is one. I believe there is a purpose.Your absolutely correct that there is no need to fear death itself, as it is a fact. But what if there is a purpose for death? should we fear that purpose? Is death a part of the purpose of life? Is death a true part of the mechanism of life ? If so, what directed the time frame for this mechanism? How is it possible for life to begin on its own from nothing knowing death was inevitable? Why and how could it do such a thing? Is it even possible? Since the universe and all species crave and fight to live, whats up with this death mechanism?Can there be any logic to nothing becoming something becoming death becoming nothing again? From an evolution standpoint, no.From a creation standpoint, yes. Thats why I belive the way I do.Respectfully, Paul

Why does the question of human origins have anything to do with the purpose of life? This is an apparent fallacy that I see from a lot of creationists.I just don't see what they have to do with each other.Anyway, how could life exist without death? It's tautological that a thing could not exist without the potential abscence of that thing.