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> What If We Are Wrong?, Enter if you dare but don't be offended
connor1985 
Posted: 20-Mar-2006, 09:57 PM
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i hope this will cause some debating but i also hope no one is offended by this.

has anyone thought what if we are wrong and christians were wrong about everything. what if we are following the wrong god? i'm not saying i serve the devil or anything because i don't at this point and time i really serve nothing and no one. my problem is i question a lot of stuff and when it isn't answered i find the answers any way i can and that usually doesn't sit to will with the christian groups i know. because of this i have broken away from all church activities and services until some of these questions are answered. (no i'm sorry i choose not to list the questions i prefer to find them on my own) but in doing this it has opened my eyes to many things and i've began to read about different religions and stuff they don't and some make more since then others. personally i think we should take some information from groups and use it in our lives it would make the world a much nicer place to live in. one group i that really interests me is buddist. i'm not really going to talk about but i do suggest reading a little about them its something quite different. however i do believe in you get what you deserve (KARMA!) just a thought and i'd like to hear from others and get ideas and thoughts.


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May all your hardships fade away till night becomes morn, may love remain to guide your way... till the day we are reborn.

Untill the day till all are one.

Every man dies, not every man really lives.

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marti64 
  Posted: 22-Mar-2006, 04:05 PM
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Connor: You raise some interesting points. I have been questioning for years, and I realize that there is definitely SOMETHING that is in control(somewhat) of our lives here on earth, whatever it may be, or whatever we call it. I was brought up in a Protestant church, and now go periodically to a somewhat charasmatic church in my neighborhood, a very small congregation, but a very friendly one. I have always been facinated, too, by the beliefs and organization of the Shakers(Quakers) especially here in New England. It was such a simple life, and everyone knew where they stand. I feel that if we all got down to the basics of our religion, and began to really understand what was actually written in the "stories of the bible" them we cna better understand ourselves!!!

Please comment some more on this!!! It always helps me to get my feelings down in writing, rather than stewing about them!!

Marti


--------------------
]AN EXCERPT FROM A POEM THAT I WROTE ON 10/11/07

WE CAN'T CHANGE WHAT WE HAVE DONE....
BUT ONLY TAKE A LESSON FROM EACH EXPERIENCE
AND MAKE THE MOST OF EACH MINUTE THAT WE HAVE LEFT
AND TELL OURELVES THAT IT IS OK TO LIVE, LAUGH AND CRY.....
PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE ALL WORK TOGETHER
TO GIVE US WHAT WE CAN AND SHOULD EXPERIENCE
AND WE NEED TO CHERISH ALL OF THE TIME
THAT WE SPEND WITH OURSELVES AND OTHERS MAKING THE MOST OF THE SPECIAL MEMORIES THAT ARE OURS..
AND THE ONES THAT WE HAVE YET TO CREATE WITH THE PEOPLE THAT WE HAVEN'T MET!!!!![/SIZE]
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Elspeth 
Posted: 22-Mar-2006, 04:27 PM
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I can't quite go with you get what you deserve. Too many good people suffer and too many not very nice people are living quite well.


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Compassion is the sometimes fatal capacity for feeling what it is like inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too.
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If society prospers at the expense of the intangibles,
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connor1985 
Posted: 22-Mar-2006, 06:58 PM
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But remember it doesn't say where or when you get what you deserve... i truly believe that at some point be it here or the next life (whatever that may or may not be) you get what's coming to you. you can't live your life doing evil things forever and never expect to have something bad happen to you. the same goes the other way around you can live your life doing all sorts of good things that doesn't mean life isn't going to be hard and bad things wont happen but if you are known as a good person good things can and will happen sometime. we all have to remember time is a factor in everything be it for good or bad and none of us can choose that time we want for anything that's why i think so many people do such evil things thinking that they have all the time in the world to make up for it or hide from it but we never do know.

i guess the main reason i asked this question is because i myself am lost at the moment. i've been going to a methodist church for ten years and i know it inside and out but now that i'm older i question things and when i am punished because of those questions then that's when i start to push away. i guess i am drifting right now because i know some of the answers but not all of them and i seek to find. a big problem i thought of recently is that the current churches whatever you go to came from one original group and was just split by years and years due to many factors. i know it says the original text was copied but there are so many different types of bibles out there how can we be sure they are still right? if there is indeed only one god then we made IT out to be many even though we come from the same group. i'm not sure on all the history so i don't really want to guess but its a scary thought that somewhere down the line maybe someone changed something to their liking and we all worship a false god figure and everything we believe is a lie. like i said a scary thought but most people will never believe that and are so hooked on what is said in church by the leaders (whoever they may be for you) that nothing else matters then what they say is right and wrong. who knows maybe the buddist are right and we keep coming back but how can that be when the population keeps growing and we still have many animals even though some have disappeared. maybe the jews are right if they are the chosen people then how can anyone else be right? i mean the list goes on and on with each and every religion out there and i just can't help but wonder who is right or maybe they all are a little right and it really doesn't matter as long as you believe in something.

i don't know and it's because of these questions that i would like to hear more from you people and i would like people to be honest we are all friends here and out beliefs shouldn't change that. please if you to are having questions post them here maybe together we can all figure this out.

Peace be with you,
~Connor~
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marti64 
Posted: 22-Mar-2006, 08:56 PM
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Connor: Questioning is part of the game of life!!! DO NOT let anyone tell you that your beliefs are WRONG!!! "Church Doctrine" is good to a point, but I think that everyone is going to have a different interpretation of it. I went through a period of questioning when I was about your age. Before that, I was very active in my church. Soon, I felt that my "deeds" were not getting me anywhere, or any recognition. I began to question, andwonder why I ws doing all the things that people told me that I should.
Nowadays, I like to think that I am a SPIRITUAL PERSON rather than a RELIGIOUS PERSON. I know that I will never have all of the answers, and that life goes on.......whatever you believe.

Marti
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Nightchild 
Posted: 23-Mar-2006, 05:41 AM
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QUOTE
Nowadays, I like to think that I am a SPIRITUAL PERSON rather than a RELIGIOUS PERSON. I know that I will never have all of the answers, and that life goes on.......whatever you believe.


That's great. I think a common problem is, that people keep mixing up religion and spirituality. wink.gif


Connor, I think it's good to wonder and to ask questions. That's the only way to learn things. And I hope I can add some new points to the discussion. I don't want to answer your questions and I don't really have quastions that shall be answered at the moment. But I'll try to explain my point of view.

At first let me say, my belief isn't in one special god. If I had to chose for one it probably would be a goddess anyway. As long as I don't have to choose I prefer to believe in some higher power, some kind of godlike energy. Take it as Energy, take it as one person, take it as several gods and goddesses, whatever you feel like. smile.gif

Talking about several religions I guess they all are as right as wrong. Religion isn't god given. It develops. There were other "religions" (better call it beliefs) before Jews showed on earth. There were Jews before Christians of any kind showed. Christian belief devided in several different. Someone once told me, there were many different types of jewish-christian belief at first but only one of it survived. Religions, beliefs take in things out of other beliefs, make it their own (as for christmas being celebrated around midwinter, easter around ostara, all hallows at the same time as samhain...)
As for me: Religion is made by people, not by gods. And the whole discussion which religion is "the right one" and which are wrong is kinda unimportant, for there is not such a thing like a false religion. They all are as right as wrong.
I think the important thing about a belief is not whether it's right or wrong, but if it does respect other beliefs as equal and good, at least in some form.

Hope that might give something to think about to the one or the other. wink.gif angel_not.gif


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connor1985 
Posted: 23-Mar-2006, 08:22 PM
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Nightchild i liked that it made a lot of sense and it also still makes me think. personally i believe that there has to be something out there but as for what i'm not to sure. science does little to prove where we came from and the ideas are flawed. the question i raise is if we all came from monkeys or gorillas then when evolution moved us to human there should be no more monkeys of gorillas they would have died out just like all our prehistoric humans did.

now i'll give you an example of a real good question put to the test. in high school i took a space science just so i have a extra class and during the year we talked about how the universe was made. its simple really there are four basic things you must have in order for the universe to exist. space, time, energy, and matter. now my teacher said that before the "big bang" all four of those things were missing and then they appeared. i asked him how can that be and it doesn't make any sense at all. you can't get space from nothing and if you have no space you can have no matter because matter takes up space. so if you have no space or matter how do you get energy which requires both of those and without time then none of this can happen. no time it doesn't matter if you have space or not because nothing would happen but because you already had no space you can't have time.

i went on and on for a while and in the end i was told pretty much to shut up and if i spoke like that again he would fail me for the rest of the year. not cool because all that did was prove to me he really had no clue what he was teaching that and it proves there has to be some sort of higher power out there to do all this. again the questions can be asked but if there really is something out there then i think it is wise of us to seek and figure it out. to me questions all have answers it just all depends on if we can understand those answers or if it is beyond us.

gee all this talking and thinking makes me want to share a drink with all you so here's one on me. beer_mug.gif cheers.gif martini.gif wine.gif pizza.gif
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Nightchild 
Posted: 24-Mar-2006, 05:14 AM
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Well, I think there are just a few things we have to believe in. For example we have to believe, that the world we live in is a real world and not some kind of virtuel world like in Matrix. Or that we are some kind of experiment some higher life form is running.
But when we believe that this world IS real and we are NO experiment, why then not just believe that the big bang existed?
Another thing we (or at least some of us) believe in is that there is a god (or some kind of god) and that he / she created the world. (By the way, I don't remember the bible saying, that god created the universe, did it? Well, maybe I'm wrong, I just can't remeber those things for such a long time, but I only remember it saying he created the world... Yet maybe that's only a translation error...)
See, what I mean? Science is just another form of belief!

About your big bang questions. I once heard a theory that after the big bang the universe is expanding, but not endlessly. Someday everything will start moving back to its origin, back to one point in the universe and crash. Then, they say, we'll have another big bang. So why not believe, that there was another universe before the one we live in?
Still that doesn't explain where everything came from in the first place. But hey, it's hard to find any prove of what was before the big bang, isn't it?

Then again (there's a topic about mixed beliefs in the grove, and I think, this goes close to mixed beliefs) why not believe, that there was a big bang and let the facts we can't explain by science be explained by some higher power that made it all happen?

As for the teacher: Not such a good one, in my opinion. A teacher should have the inner strength to admit things he or she doesn't know about...
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Swanny 
Posted: 24-Mar-2006, 07:23 AM
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QUOTE
By the way, I don't remember the bible saying, that god created the universe, did it?


Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."



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CelticCoalition 
Posted: 24-Mar-2006, 12:33 PM
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Personally, I think everyone on earth is wrong when it comes to religion and god.

However, I don't think it really matters. IMHO all beliefs and religions are just an attempt at explaining the unexplainable, mainly through a strong desire humans have of explaining that which they don't understand. I also feel like it is a way to bring meaning into peoples' lives and feel less alone in the universe.

I heard a comedian once call God an imaginary friend for adults.

As to why I don't think it matters...I suppose that just a matter of faith for me. I believe that good things happen to those who are good, bad things happen to those who are bad, and sometimes bad or good things just happen. I don't really think there is a divine influence that really cares all that much about us at the end of the day and I strongly believe that we are in control of our own destiny. We may be shown the door, or put in a certain situation, but it is up to us to decide what to do about it.

I just don't think religion matters much...and I think peope put far too much import on whether or not their beliefs or anyone elses is Right or Wrong. Besides, everyone's beliefs are based on the same currency: faith. To say that one person's faith is more valid than another's based on the belief structure they put their faith in...I think that's just wrong.


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May those who love us love us
And those who don't love us
May God turn their hearts,
And if He doesn't turn their hearts,
May He turn their ankles,
So we'll know them by their limping.
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Swanny 
Posted: 24-Mar-2006, 11:24 PM
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QUOTE

has anyone thought what if we are wrong and christians were wrong about everything. what if we are following the wrong god?


If you are wrong, then you won't go to heaven and all of those people that the "good Christians" (or "good Muslims", &c) have been harassing for being 'bad' and 'sinful' won't go to hell. Instead our spirit will be assimilated into the whole, or reincarnated in a new form or new body, or return to the center of everything or become a part of the Great Mystery or your spirit will be judged upon your own merits rather than those of the book you chose to follow.

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John Clements 
Posted: 25-Mar-2006, 11:16 AM
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I think the last time we had a meaningful, spiritual connection. Was when our so called, savage ancestors, worshiped Mother Nature, which, in my opinion is the only true god!

In fact, I believe religion in general, fundamentally divides humanity. I mean… Isn't life difficult enough, without complicating it, more than it already is!


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connor1985 
Posted: 25-Mar-2006, 12:10 PM
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QUOTE (John Clements @ 25-Mar-2006, 12:16 PM)
I think the last time we had a meaningful, spiritual connection. Was when our so called, savage ancestors, worshiped Mother Nature, which, in my opinion is the only true god!

In fact, I believe religion in general, fundamentally divides humanity. I mean… Isn't life difficult enough, without complicating it, more than it already is!

i agree and believe that when we as people worshiped nature things seemed to work a little better. however the church started called that group pagans and now half the time if you hear that word people think DEVIL!!! which is completely wrong the devil has nothing at all to do with that group. sure some of their things are a little weird but then again each religion has something kind of messed up or goofy in it. here's a thought though. when "god" created man/woman in the garden we were at peace with nature and everything around us it was only after eating from the tree of knowledge that we fell from grace (if that's what you believe) and began to fight against nature. since then i think we have been losing that battle. you can never defeat nature it will never go away (unless we blow up the world in which case it really doesn't matter) so really maybe we all started out as pagans but like everything else start to separate and form our own little things. with all the garbage happening around the world between wars and the elements beating on us maybe it's a sign that we need to go back and really think about what we are doing and who we worship. it we respected nature i don't think we would have some of the problems we are facing today like global warming. we wouldn't have butchered the forest and pumped so much crap into the planet because we would've cared if we hurt the earth. just a thought but a good one to ponder about.
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WizardofOwls 
Posted: 26-Mar-2006, 05:04 AM
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If we are wrong, then I, as a Christian, have lived a life that I can be proud of. I have done my best to be a person that helps others, and have tried to do good to those around me. By those standards, if we are wrong then I think I should do well in whatever is yet to come.

For me, though, the question should not be what if we are wrong, but what if we are RIGHT!

Eternity is a LONG time!


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Slàn agus beannachd,
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'S i Alba tìr mo chridhe. 'S i Gàidhlig cànan m' anama.
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Nightchild 
Posted: 26-Mar-2006, 05:57 AM
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So what, Wizard? What if you are right? Isn't that, what the discussion is always about? Who's right and what happens to those who believe in the false things in one false or many (and therefor false as well) gods?
I think it's must more interesting, to think about what happens when you are wrong, for if you're right, it's all fine and well with you. The only thing left to do is convince others that their belief is false and yours is the right one. Asking yourself if you might be wrong opens the eye to what is beyond the things you take for granted.
It might lead to the knowledge, that you follow the false religion, but it might also lead to the knowledge that whatever god or goddess you worship doesn't matter in the end but what matters is how you treat yourself and those around you, including the 'lifeless' nature, that's not lifeless at all. Like Swanny said. Wise words, Swanny smile.gif

It's not about saying 'Hey, you're wrong, find something else to believe in!' It's just about not closing in and not seeing anything outside the selfmade border.

As for the last meaningful spiritual connection... I don't think it was all those years ago. The 'date' depends on the society. Look at some african cultures, look at maori and aborigines. I strongly believe, they still have such a meaningful connection.
I pretty much also believe, that there are people following christian believes that have a meaningful connection to whatever on a spiritual basis. And as for me, my last meaningful connection was yesterday. (Not taking into account, that the connection is always there, but most people chose to ignore it.)

As for destroying the world around us: I think we wouldn't have to change our religion for being better to the world and the nature. It would be enough if we just realized that we are connected to nature, that we are part of it and that probability is much higher for nature to survive without us then for us to survive without nature.
Good luck, mankind *g*
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