Is christianity, or religion in general, a belief of convinience?

for everytime someone has asked these questions... I'd have a lot of nickels.

Well for ages past mankind has looked at nature and at the stars and said... "There MUST be a god that started it all."Of course... no longer is that the conclusion one is necessarily forced to.

Wow! so I'm NOT the youngest one here. I'm 19 as of 10 days ago...sorry ya'll... this has nothing to do with anything...

This is sort of like Pascals wager. Can you give me proof of spirits of any kind, and that your spirit is the right one?How can you brand someone elses "spirit" is fake, and say so definitively, when upon the same grounds he can brand your "spirit" as fake.You both belive you are right, yet there is no way to prove ones case over the other.Its a matter of opinion. Prove to me that red is not a better color than blue.see what I am saying?You can't say "Im right, because I am", thats the dumbest argument ever. If it is so clear then how come many christian denomenations interpret these passages so very diffeerently?Catholisisim for example has a very tolerant aproach to other religions. Ok, so you come up to a native and say "god is the only god""I worship the sun, he gives me light, food and life"You say, "the sun is not a god, god is a man who died a long time ago, and he loves you. but if you don't love him back, he will throw you in a lake of fire for ever and ever"Native "Why would he do that, I thought you said he loved me?"You "cuz you are sinfull garbage, only christ can make you whole"Native "So where is this god?"You "He lives in heven"Native "Where is that"you "I don't know"Native "Whats he look like"you "I don't know"Native "I can see the sun, he takes away the night, he makes the plants grow, he takes the chill out of the winter. I'll stick with the sun"Can you blame the native? Yet another testament to the very paradox of an omnipotent being.Ill just let this statement stand on its own.

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Ofcourse we think it is something else, like a placebo. Otherwise we wouldn't believe. We believe we have the truth, if we thought is was some mental placebo - then we would stop believing. The problem here is, that because we should (according to you)- look at it from another persons perspective, then we should then take that other persons perspective as truth. But why should we? You don't!

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This attitude is not universal to all religions.Several stripes of Hinduism consider there to many, many paths to liberating one's spirit from the cycle of rebirth and that there is no one, true way. They believe that all ways are deserving of tolerance and understanding.Therefore, many Hindus don't think that their way is the only way and the Christian way is wrong, but that the Hindu way is the better way and that Christians are just bad Hindus and will not accumulate much good karma, so will therefore spend more time in the cycle of rebirth.

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The Jews were exposed to false gods in Egypt, and God says have "no other gods" because obviously he means those false ones his children were exposed to.

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Um, mike?There's no evidence whatsoever that the Jews were enslaved in Egypt.None at all.All of that is just a story.

Some spirits (demons) are obviously evil. They demand human sacrifices or sex orgies (read about the phallic cult) or posses people and cause them to become irrational and violent. Some are more subtle and gently deceptive providing (magical) powers or insight or speaking through mediums (I won't go into the visions my friend, Micah, has been allowed to see of angels and demons). Any spirit that does not admit "Christ is Lord" is a demon.Demon possession is actually more common than you would think and it would not be too hard to find a demon possessed person. Necromancy goes under the name of "channeling" in America today or witch doctoring in other places or oracles or voodoo. Also, testimonies of thoes who've experienced alien encounters also bear a striking resemblences to those of channelers.I'm sure you think all of this is hogwash. But where there's smoke there's usually a fire. And there sure is a lot of smoke out there. Because the idea of anyone going to hell is emotionally repulsive. They cannot possibly imagine a loving God sending anyone but the most horrible villain to hell. As of late, yes. The story does not unfold quite the way you portray it.I had the privilege of hearing Marylin Maslow speak last semester and her story was very interesting. She became a missionary to the Seepekewam tribe in Papua New Guinea and stayed with them for about 40 years I think, and learned their language and helped make a BIble translation for them. These people had never heard of the outside world and lived the same way warring with their neighboring headhunters for thousands of years. They had a witch doctor to control the "spirits" (she saw some very frightening demonic activity) and they believed that the crocodile was the creator of their tribe. They worshiped the crocodile as their ancestors had for millenia. The first time she and the tribal leader were able to communicate effectively, he explained to her the laws that the people go by. The laws were almost the same as the ten commandments and the golden rule. From this common moral ground, she was able to witness to the whole tribe and they accepted Christ with complete faith. After many years of translating the Bible, the first canoe load of Bibles arrived up the river. When the people saw the canoes filled with the Word of God coming up the river, they lined the river ecstaticly cheering and had a huge celebration. At the end of forty years, the whole tribe was converted to Christianity and 8 or so (i forget) young men came to America to become pastors and missionaries to go back and witness to their enemy tribes.Anyways to answer your question... yes, if a person hears and understands the gospel, but rejects it the blame is on him.

prove to me that the sun isn't a god Hangdawg13I say hes a god, and created the universe. Prove Im wrong.

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Rofl. Hasn't he already shown you that he has had numerous answered prayers which do not include post hoc reasoning, and confirmation bias?

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No, he hasn't.

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Like when he was healed for example, and gained a girlfriend etc.. These are specific requests, met by specific responses.

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He refused to provide specific details, so all I have is his vague word.Sorry, not good enough.Besides, if he loses this girlfriend or gets sick again, he will say one of two things:1) God is trying to teach me something by causing me this hardship, or2) I guess the answer to my prayer is coming at a later time; "this isn't the REAL girlfriend sent to me by God", or somesuch.Never, ever will he simply say "well, isn't life funny how it works out?"God will ALWAYS be behind anything and everything that happens that he deems significant, no matter if it triumph or heartbreak. Never will anything ever be just due to circumstances.The thing is, I am willing to bet another million dollars that Christians have their ups and downs in life at more or less the same rate as anybody else, regardless of prayer.

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he had asked for a healing, and received a loaf of bread, and shrugged it off, then maybe I would buy into this post hoc babble.

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Maybe he did get a loaf of bread in response to his prayer, and the Girlfriend had nothing to do with God at all.How do you know the cause?This is the assigning of cause after the fact in order to confirm your bias.You WANT God to answer your prayers, and you WANT God to have a certain type of character, so you interpret everything that happens as if He does answer, and you interpret further to maintain the desired nature of God.That's why uncured illnesses are interpreted as God's efforts to "instruct" us, and why the rape and murder of 6 year old children is interpreted as OK with God in the long run, because there is an afterlife in which the victim gets to see the torment of her rapist.So, how do you tell the difference between God really communicating with you and you talking to yourself inside your own head?How do you tell the difference between a real answered prayer of "no" sometimes and "yes" sometimes, and the completely mundane ups and downs of life?This message has been edited by schrafinator, 07-15-2004 11:29 PM

Just cuz you don't understands someones culture dosn't mean they are possesd by demons. The phallus in many asian cultures is a symbol of fertility and abundance. It brings life. Is that such a far fetched concept?Other cultures have similar symbols, except they often use pregnant women, or earth godess imagery.Is it just strange to you that its a penis? Asian cultures also have a much more liberal view about sex and sexuality given that they wrote some of the best books on the stuff ever seen a christian revival? snake dancing? speaking in touges? nuff said. Yes, I have a very vivid imagination too. Once I had a dream I could move things with my mind. It seemed so real, that when I woke up I tried to actually do it for like a half hour before I felt silly and gave up. The mind is a powerfull thing, demons, no. prove there are spirits at all. Yes it's hogwash.I lived near Haiti most of my life and have seen "voodoo". Its bullshit, plain and simple, People rile themselves up in their own frenzy and writhe and act nutz. Not too different from the kind of junk you see on TBN in the waining hours of the day."channeling" and UFO's are for the crackpots and the gullible. They don't come from the suppernatural anymore than the bible does. Maybe that is because it is a dumb idea. Maybe because it contradicts the very nature of an all loving god. Maybe cuz, the punishment dosn't fit this crime nobody commited.God forbid, maybe its an unfair punishment?

If you really believe that, then I can't. I can only try to change your mind by showing you an alternative.

so then your alternative is as good as my belife. i.e. equal.If there is nothing you can objectively offer to weight yours over mine, then we are essentially the same.

That's true. I'm not saying they all are. I'm just saying it's possible and it does happen. Look into the phallic cult a little more and you'll find there's a lot more going on than just a little dicking around. No... I try to stay away from that sorta thing... Dang... you should asked them if Christ is Lord in the middle of a frenzy and see what they do. How many times did you witness this? BTW I've spoekn with an MK from Africa and he's seen a lot more than just getting riled up as has my friend Micah, that I mentioned. God's righteousness, justice, AND love were satisfied through Christ's work on the cross and cannot be satisfied any other way.

THIS is where the role of the Holy Spirit comes in.

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I can test gravity and I can see the blue sky.

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...and you can test the ToE and see evolution happening in a test tube. If you have a couple of decades, you can see it happening in birds, like Jonathan Weiner did in the Galapagos.

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The fundamental flaw in getting people evolutionist, is that it is past tense.

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Actually, it's not past tense. Evolution is happening constantly all over the world.The problem is one of timescales, not past or present. People get hung up on vertebrate evolution, but this proceeds at a very slow pace, much much longer than a human lifespan.Bacteria, insects and plants are better because they have much higher generational rates.

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Whereas gravity is there to be tested, and is weighed by it's claims,

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The thing is, to understand anything at all about gravitational theory you need a great deal of advanced physics, including Einstein's Relativity.

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and the blue sky is sufficient in it's claims.

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Agsain, to really understand why the sky is blue requires a good bit of physics.

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Saying we came from common ancestors is a bit heavy when it's history.

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The idea that we have parents is heavy?I think people consider it "heavy" because of the Judeo/Christian tradition of viewing humans as the pinnacle of God's creation and utterly separated from nature. We consider it demeaning to be just a highly evolved primate.

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So evolution requires some belief.

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No, evolution requires some study. It does not require any belief.