we're here so we can advance to the point where we (or at least one of the life forms on any of the billions and billions of planets that exist) can manipulate time travel with the greatest of ease, and in fact advance so far, that we can go back in time far enough and actually create the universe ourselves, thus completing the cycles that requires no beginning


a load of shite written by me

I'm a Christian. I don't go to church or read the Bible or anything, but I have a healthy belief in God and Jesus. I think for believers like myself, it's important and kind of comforting to know that there is something else there when we die, you know it's not just a case of you die and that's it. I know on a personal level, believing in God helps me through life. If I'm going through a lot of hard times, I know God is setting me these challenges to make me a stronger person.

But anyway, that's just my opinion. People are entitled to believe what they wish to believe.

Well I'm a combination of Catholic and Baptist but I believe my own direction

where's the proof you exist?
ie - that other people say you exist. But what if that's just a dream.
oh, the "I think, therfore I am"
that's an invalid argument because it presupposes that there is an I who thinks. It presupposes what it is trying to prove.

So what am I getting at?
I'm getting at is that these questions are necessarily beyond the realm of human understanding.

I don't get calculus, but I'm not about to say it doesn't exist. I don't get god, space, time etc, so on and so forth. They are all beyond human understanding. That does not mean they don't exist.

For instance, your space thing. We make sense of things in terms of cause and effect, and taking up space and so on and so forth. Is that the way things really are? Maybe. maybe not. But they're useful to help us understand the world.

Now since we understand things in terms of taking up space we can't understnad something that necessarily violates this presuppposition - ie - the end of the universe. Does that 0neccesarily mean it doesn't end? no. does that mean it necessarily does end? no. It just means we can't make sense of it.

You have given human kind an inflated ego. It sounds a bit like criticisng the piano for you being a poor piano player.

It's not god's fault you can't understand him. You're incapable of it. It's your poor piano/thinking ability not the piano itself. (I don't mean you in particular, I mean all of humanity)

No I wasn't trying to be clever. I was trying to stimulate serious thought and discussion rather than just criticising people's points without argument and rather than simply providing details of my religious affiliation without any over-riding reasons for why I think what I do, which to me, is completely uninteresting.

organized religion in US annoys the shit out of me. Especially how politics play key in organized religion

religion fulfills a psychological need - (whether it's also true or not is a separate question)
so if it were (and let's pretend it could) be eliminated then there'd be no difference I think - you'd find something else to fulfill this need (or it would go unfuffilled which could be worse - existential angst anyone?)

officially I'm protestant.

i also was arguably the worlds greatest alter serve - ohh i remeber the rich weddings - made a fortune

Been watching a lot of videos on Youtube lately about atheism and christianity. Father was protestant and my mother was jewish. We split the holidays until I was about 12. Then was raised jewish even though I never stepped into a synagogue except to go to hebrew school for a batz mitzvah that never took place. I'd consider myself agnostic now. Would be nice for there to be a god and heaven but the things taught in the bible, new and old testament, make no sense to me.

'Officially', having been christened, I am protestant. But religion doesn't play a part in my life at all - I don't believe in it. It's a surprising admission for some - my dad is actually an Episcopalian vicar (which is the Scottish equivalent of Anglican) - he has bookshelves full of it. Up until the age of 10, I would go to church - but I detested Sunday School, and it was the most boring few hours of my entire week. My dad got the message that when I would rather worship Michael Schumacher on a Sunday rather than god.

However, I don't find it strange at all that my dad does that job - he's always believed in self-reliance and individualism as opposed to drumming things into me. Relgion was never a talking point at the dinner table, we never said grace or whatever - all I remember was that it was a part of my life on a Sunday morning.

I don't see him as a minister at all, or a 'man of god', I just see him as my dad. It's the Episcopalian/Anglican way which is not as hardline as other denominations - 'relatively flexible' is all that I can understand from conversations with him (thank fuck I wasn't a baptist being brought up to believe things like the world being 5000 years old!). So I never really had a problem with religion until I went to university. I came across quite a lot of massively devout Christians, who would thank god for everything that came their way, and believed in all that stuff like sex before marriage, homosexuality as a sin, etc. They were all of different denominations but, when talking to them, it was clear this was all drummed into them at an early age by their equally devout parents - I mean, we're talking really serious here to the point their parents wouldn't allow them to read Harry Potter novels because it featured witchcraft. I shit you not.

Then when my dad was brought up, the shit really hit the fan. To begin with, they thought I should be ashamed of myself that I didn't follow in my dad's footsteps. Well they didn't actually say, but when I mentioned my own beliefs, a couple of them would shake their heads or look awkwardly at me. I said it wasn't me rebelling against my dad, but that my dad would never force religion down my throat. To which point, my dad was a shit minister who didn't believe in anything he preached. I politely told them to fuck themselves, and said I'm more proud of him being a good dad than a good minister, and that at least I could think for myself as opposed to being brainwashed.

I've thought about that since then, and I do think I was sometimes out of line, but when you hear personal insults levelled at your own dad who these people have no idea about, then I'm sure even tehy could forgive me for being tetchy about it.

At the end of the day, I don't have a problem with religion if it is moderate. I resent those who say EVERYONE who believes in it is inherently evil or a complete fuckwit (again, I see it as a slight against my dad) - they are almost as bad and narrow minded as the hardliners they rebel against. But when religion attempts to infringe upon others or judge upon others as what happened to me, then we have a serious problem. And don't be fooled by the shiny teeth and smiles, and 'goodwill' they attempt to show on first impression, because dig a little deeper, and there is a nastinessn there that is only detrimental to the whole of society - and ultimately to be proved, their own religion.