My Beliefs- GDR

Do you think that if you had been born in a small mountain village in Afghanistan, you would have come to the same conclusions?

Let's be honest here, without external intervention, it would be impossible. The fact that someone can not become a Christian if they are born in the 'wrong' place but can serve god anyway by having a loving heart makes the concept of Christianity and all it's trapping redundant doesn't it?

Which, has nothing at all to do with Christ or religion. It's a universal desire. No. When you have people in Afghanistan loving their neighbours they are doing it either because it's the will of Allah or because it's the right thing to do - but probably both. They would resent and deny any implication that they are serving a Christian God by living the way that they do.But you are of course simply cherry pocking Jesus's sayings to suit what you prefer to believe:Mark 16:16 ESV
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.John 14:6 ESV
Jesus said to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.Mark 1:15 ESV
And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.John 3:36 ESV
Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.John 6:53 ESV
So Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.John 15:1-27 ESV
I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. ...And so on. It's pretty clear that accordingto the bible, you only get to the kingdom through a belief in Christ. It's very simple and it's a universal human desire; there is therefore has no requirement or need to believe in a Christian mythology or dreams of afterlife to achieve it.

I'd say that you'd have to duck and dive, twist and jive more than you've managed so far to take these to mean anything other than what they actually say.Mark 16:16 ESV
Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.John 14:6 ESV
Jesus said to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.It's crystal clear what these verses are intended to mean. To make them mean something else, you need to actually change the meaning of the words.

Well of course you are picking and choosing. Your first choice is to decide that the bible is not the inerrant word of god but the words of man. After that, you are free to set your own interpretation on what's written and accept or reject them as you see fit.I don't blame you at all for doing that - obviously the bible isn't the word of god - but it's a very modern practice to apply such liberal interpretations. Even today the vast majority or Christian religious dogma has it that in order to be save you must believe in Christ.Once you accept the non-superaturalness of the biblical stories and accept that they are errant, you're on a pretty slippery slope with no rational reason to believe that any of it is true at all. Let alone the wilder claims - such as the resurrection.

Of course, I'll happily accept any real world evidence. Why on earth would I not? I don't hold a belief about God, I simply have no evidence on which to accept one. If that evidence appeared I'd be more than happy to accept it. Wrong. I'm sorry to dissapoint you Phat, all a rationalist needs is evidence. Just make a single amputated limb grow back with the touch of a healing hand and I'll happily bow down like the rest of you.

The majority of Christians are Catholics, they believe that in order to get to heaven you must be baptised. They say that their beliefs are based on the scripture that you choose to interpret in a different way.It's pretty much a central part of all Christian belief that in order to be saved you need to believe in Christ. It's an extremely modern view that maybe it's not necessary - probaably heresy :-)

I'm aware of that wiki and I only mentioned Catholic baptism as a single example. All the orthodox religions and the majority of protestant plus a bunch of others require a belief in Christ for entry qualifications.And that's just today, when a lot of religious thinking is liberalising and accommodating - 300 years ago, your interpretations would have been an anathema.I'm not against you on this point - it seems obvious to me that if a god exists at all, he mustn't give a damn (sic) about worship and belief, it's far more important whether a person behaves decently and it's obviously un-Christian to believe otherwise.However, I think that this point makes religious believe utterly redundant. Behaving decently has nothing to do with Christ or religion. Occam slices it out of the way.Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.

No, that's not what I'm saying. Behaving decently is not just about me - it's about living a moral life which by definition, means treating others fairly and decently. And I and a few billion Muslims, Buddists, Jews, Hindus, and Pagans don't, so where does that get us? I think it probably true that those with fervent beliefs are more likely to do 'good works' than the average 'decent' person. But leading a day to day moral life has very little to do with saving babies in Africa and so on.

That's one part of the point. I'll ignore the bringing God's love into world bit as it begs the question but the idea that only religions can do some forms of charitable works is obviously silly. Religions do not have a monopoly on trying to make the world a better place. Well that's terrific, but so what? The company that I own donates all it's services for free to any UK registered charity that asks us - I do not need a church, a god or a religion to do my bit to make the world a better place. Not only that, but I do it in the sure knowledge that there is no reward for my deeds in an afterlife.If religion isn't required to get me a happy afterlife and it's not required to motivate me to try to make the world a better place and live a decent life, just why is it needed at all?

Self evidently That religion isn't necessary for GDR (or anyone else) to lead a good life, do good things and get into heaven.

Well no, my belief is that god doesn't exist at all - so as far as I'm concerned it's all a redundant argument.My interest is with GDR's beliefs. It seems to me that if you can get into heaven, lead a moral life and do good works without a belief in god, then the rest is community interest and worthless worship. (Worthless in the sense that his god doesn't require it but maybe GDR does.)

It's hard not to see the need to wear glasses as a disability and that science is required to correct the error.

How could I miss a point that obvious?Btw, I like sweaters.

This isn't correct at all. Science has so far proven that pretty much everything claimed by religious thinkers that involve the natural world - age of the earth, immutability of species, floods and so on - are wrong.We find no evidence for spirits, angels and ghosts - holy or otherwise.We also find no evidence for any claimed deistic involvement in our word, answered prayers and healing for example, simply do not happen.So we're left with the bible and its stories which even you admit is contradictory and errant, written by the people that were not eye witnesses and almost certainly had political motives.We are allowed to make deductions from this lack of evidence and the most obvious one is that the hypothesis that there is supernatural intervention in our world as described by the majority of Christian believers is in error.For sure it doesn't disprove the existence of a god that takes no interest in our lives, but the 2,000 year god of Christianity is defunct pending evidence.