What would it take for you to stop....

[gladman]

Your original question displays your ignorance of faith. I was pointing out that it was sad.

Faith is my belief in GOD and that JESUS is the saviour of my soul no matter what I "learn". You don't "learn" to lose faith in God. Your faith only gets stronger with adversity. Faith is not an option. Faith is all that matters. Faith is knowing Jesus died for my sins and telling God I believe this with all my heart.

Didn't say it was an attack. just implied you are ignorant. It's just sad.

so, if you lost your faith, it would all fall apart, right?

nice job covering up your slip into a non 'godly response'

Why do you assume I'm ignorant of faith.

Since you capitalize JESUS, what about Buddists or Muslims, do they have faith?

 

[Yota Up]

If you believe in a higher being, what would have to happen or what would you need to learn to STOP believing?

Make the atmosphere not be clear, like on many other planets.
Make the moon not be perfect size to block the sun so you can see the sun surface to study it.
Make our place in the galaxy not be between arms so we can't study outside out of it.


Make all the other dials on the never ending switchboard of reality not show up as dialed in perfectly for all other million equations as a "coincidence".
Just make one of those dials on that equalizer off key and it all goes to shit. Go ahead. Then I'll call it a coincidence rather than intelligent design.


PS: This has nothing to do with Jesus but everything to do with "intelligent design".

 

[ev13wt]

If you believe in a higher being, what would have to happen or what would you need to learn to STOP believing?

There is no way to know for sure.
I believe that anything man-made must be wrong, and if there is more than one version of "truth" all "truths" are wrong.

As such, we can probably agree that this life, and our awareness of ourselves and being able to see time as something separate from the spacetime continuum, there is only one solution.
Embrace the absurd and keep searching and asking. Believing in a man-made explanation and STOPPING to ask and search is philosophical suicide.

Anyone that says: "God doesn't exist", or "God exists" - is a person that is too weak to embrace the reality of life. It's giving up to "feel good".

Reference Camus: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism

 

[ev13wt]

I personally believe in a sort of "intelligent design". We made this universe. We combined stuff and with a BANG - this "reality" appeared. Reality is an illusion. It is only waves and matter. Read up on quantum mechanics for some more supporting evidence. Our "soul" - which is one being, not an individual (pffff, you ain't that important) thing, is entwined with what we call reality. We are all one, stuck and lost in a weird-looking, manipulated ape - the only way to experience "3D reality".

HOWEVER - who made the soul? And there you have it. Do not disregard a higher power altogether ;) Ask after death - if you have "time" to. ;)

 

[Provience]

okay, what would have to happen to get them to 'knock of the stupid religious stuff"

religion is not going away, religious gatherings and tendancies should not go away. religion *is* community, they are synonyms at the root. just like faith and reason are synonyms for confidence.

the goal to knock off religious stuff is a false goal and should not be considered a positive aim.

and with that said, conversation and the confidence to hold and engage in the sharing of ideas is the greatest way to flesh out extremism.


edit: i gave up on my organized religion years before i gave up on (heavily modified) my views of the "truth" it was built around, but that isn't to say i wouldn't go back to organized religion. i've actually been thinking about it more this past year or two. I don't actually need to accept their truth

 

[Sterlingfire]

God is inside you. If you stop having faith in God, you stop having faith in yourself... but you don't need faith in God to have faith in yourself.
i don't believe in God, but i believe we were created by a higher power. To me it seems like nonsense to believe that the "creator" is here, still watching us over the course of history. An all knowing being who knows even what is in our thoughts.
If you need to believe there is a place for your soul after death to help you be a good person, so be it. I don't need that, i will let my honesty and good will show me the way to the end. After that, who cares? I'm not afraid of death, but i worry if i go too soon, my family will suffer.

 

[jeepyj]

Since you capitalize JESUS, what about Buddists or Muslims, do they have faith?

I'll take the easy one first. Jesus is the name of the man. You capitalize names. AFAIK, there was noone named muslim. A buddhist might be a follower of someone named Buddy, but I doubt it.

If you believe in a higher being, what would have to happen or what would you need to learn to STOP believing?

I would need to go back 40 years and unsee a lot of shit that I saw.

Here's one. First some context. I do not normally pray. I never pray for stuff or for people to get better. If someone is meant to die, my praying for them isn't going to change that. Beth was a friend of mine that I have since lost contact with.

One winter Saturday night about 11pm. I woke up, startled, and the only thing in my head was "Pray for Beth and her family". I did. Then went back to sleep. I saw her on Monday. Her son was in a car accident Saturday night. Guess what time. Rolled the jeep into a ditch and it layed on it's passenger side. He broke both legs and an arm. He was laying on the passenger side door when the fire started. He dragged himself up and out the driver side door and away from the burning wreck with one good arm.

There are other incidents. I won't bore you.

.

 

[woods]

Riding home one night on the motorcycle. S-turn up ahead. Approach the turn, white Chevy truck over the yellow line. I'm lined right up with the headlight. Square on. At the time, had a picture of my boy on my home screen on my phone. That image was all I saw. Everything shut off. No sounds. No lights. No movement. Just that image was there.

Moments later, I'm a few hundred feet past the turn. Bike on the side of the road, parked. Kickstand down. Key off. I'm just sitting there on the bike. Helmet off. No idea how long I was there for.

Now, I'm probably the least religious person on here. I don't condone those that are, by all means go for it. I just ask not to push it on me. But I think something happened that day. I don't believe a higher being or anything, still. And I know it sounds stupid, but I do follow the belief in multiverses and I feel like I skipped over there. I still can't explain it. I rode home thinking if I did skip over, I was questioning if I still lived at the same house.

 

[Jackie Treehorn]

Jesus is the name of the man. You capitalize names. AFAIK, there was noone named muslim. A buddhist might be a follower of someone named Buddy, but I doubt it.

You mean Buddha?

 

[jeepyj]

You mean Buddha?

Hey! I bet you're right.

.

 

[ev13wt]

One winter Saturday night about 11pm. I woke up, startled, and the only thing in my head was "Pray for Beth and her family". I did. Then went back to sleep. I saw her on Monday. Her son was in a car accident Saturday night. Guess what time. Rolled the jeep into a ditch and it layed on it's passenger side. He broke both legs and an arm. He was laying on the passenger side door when the fire started. He dragged himself up and out the driver side door and away from the burning wreck with one good arm.

There are other incidents. I won't bore you.

.

We are all connected. Pray / send energy / good thoughts - I think it's all the same thing with different names.

 

[Levigarrett76]

child molestation, pancreatic cancer, rape, sex trafficing

 

[FleshEater]

God is inside you. If you stop having faith in God, you stop having faith in yourself... but you don't need faith in God to have faith in yourself.
i don't believe in God, but i believe we were created by a higher power. To me it seems like nonsense to believe that the "creator" is here, still watching us over the course of history. An all knowing being who knows even what is in our thoughts.
If you need to believe there is a place for your soul after death to help you be a good person, so be it. I don't need that, i will let my honesty and good will show me the way to the end. After that, who cares? I'm not afraid of death, but i worry if i go too soon, my family will suffer.

I used to believe in nothing. Used to think we could be good on our own. The past few years have renewed my faith in Jesus, and the Lord. I'm not good or great at it, but I try every day. I can't explain it, but look around, and tell me...when morality is subjective and not absolute; then what is actually moral? Killing unborn children? Killing children up to the day they're born? The morality of communist parties? Giving pedophiles a pass as they suffer from uncontrollable mental illness? The morality of Antifa or BLM?

All of these are subjective, as some people legitimize things like Antifa, BLM, Stalin, the list goes on. There are people in this country that find it absolutely morally acceptable to kill unborn children. I find most things people find morally acceptable to reprehensible.

 

[Tiha]

God is perfect, Man is not. Don't blame God for all of the horrible things that happen.

The wages of 1 sin is death. Doesn't matter if you are a serial killer or a petty thief. There is only one way to heaven.

Bad things happen, we are tested, just like a new well, run it to make sure it will not run dry.

The devil is real and he roams the earth.

It takes as much faith to believe there is not God as it does to believe there is.

Those are not my words, but words from the bible.

When you know, you just know. It is a personal journey that every person must take on their own. It says in the bible every man is given enough information to make their own decision.

If you are losing, or have lost your faith, then maybe you never really had it.

I have no doubts, nothing will strip it away from me. I have seen too much to deny it. Over time we all go through phases where we might have doubts or want to give up, but it also says in the bible the closer you are to God the harder the devil works on you to steal you away from him. More faith often equals more strife.

My opinion is not going to be the popular one, but feel free to persecute me like the bible says you will for having stood up for the hope that lies within me.

 

[Boss]

so, if you lost your faith, it would all fall apart, right?

nice job covering up your slip into a non 'godly response'

Why do you assume I'm ignorant of faith.

Since you capitalize JESUS, what about Buddists or Muslims, do they have faith?

If you truly have faith you will never lose faith. It is absolute.

Thank You. Never claimed to be God. I'm merely a believer of God and a follower of Jesus Christ.

Because your babblings illustrate it. Maybe you're a troll...who knows.

Don't know don't care. Are we done here?

 

[JR4X]

The early untimely death of my mother did it for me. My mom made sure her kids were raised in the Catholic Church. I was an alter boy, went through bible study school called catechism, involved in a youth group through the church. You’d be hard pressed to find a woman more kind or generous than my mother. She was diagnosed with advanced colon cancer at the age of 37 when I was 16, my baby brother was 4 years old. Cancer took her life at the age of 39 with 5 kids ages 18, 16, 14, 10, and baby brother turned 6 while she was on her death bed.

My mother who’s name was Susan loved her kids so much more than herself that she ignored the signs of cancer taking over her body. The year she died I was spending a ton of time with her. One of the events going on that year was the sentencing of Susan Smith, the woman who sent her car to the bottom of a lake with her children trapped inside of it. That human pile of trash is still alive in prison today for killing her own kids. While my mother who wanted nothing more than to see her kids grow up, fall in love and have kids of their own is dead of cancer.

To say I lost my fucking mind is an understatement. I disagree with the church that god doesn’t make mistakes and that the lord works in mysterious ways. I never felt so betrayed. I abandoned my family and embarked on a mission to study other religions to compare to Catholicism. The more I read the more I was convinced it was all bull shit. There is no god, all religions are just Santa Clause for adults to trick people into being good on this earth with the false promise of a perfect eternal afterlife.

I’m convinced that heaven and hell are right here on earth. Hell is being born into a poor family through no fault of their own, being raped tortured murdered. Heaven is being born into a wealthy family through nothing other than luck and having every opportunity land in their lap.

 

[Provience]

I’m convinced that heaven and hell are right here on earth. Hell is being born into a poor family through no fault of their own, being raped tortured murdered. Heaven is being born into a wealthy family through nothing other than luck and having every opportunity land in their lap.

Love. love is the difference. To take a popular example, biden is wealthy and his kids were born into a wealthy family, they have lived in and created their own personal hell. wealth is significantly less important than love. you can be poor as shit, born into a family of love and experience heaven in poverty.

love is the tool that sells every religion. even satanists and cults, they sell themselves on love.

 

[FleshEater]

The early untimely death of my mother did it for me. My mom made sure her kids were raised in the Catholic Church. I was an alter boy, went through bible study school called catechism, involved in a youth group through the church. You’d be hard pressed to find a woman more kind or generous than my mother. She was diagnosed with advanced colon cancer at the age of 37 when I was 16, my baby brother was 4 years old. Cancer took her life at the age of 39 with 5 kids ages 18, 16, 14, 10, and baby brother turned 6 while she was on her death bed.

My mother who’s name was Susan loved her kids so much more than herself that she ignored the signs of cancer taking over her body. The year she died I was spending a ton of time with her. One of the events going on that year was the sentencing of Susan Smith, the woman who sent her car to the bottom of a lake with her children trapped inside of it. That human pile of trash is still alive in prison today for killing her own kids. While my mother who wanted nothing more than to see her kids grow up, fall in love and have kids of their own is dead of cancer.

To say I lost my fucking mind is an understatement. I disagree with the church that god doesn’t make mistakes and that the lord works in mysterious ways. I never felt so betrayed. I abandoned my family and embarked on a mission to study other religions to compare to Catholicism. The more I read the more I was convinced it was all bull shit. There is no god, all religions are just Santa Clause for adults to trick people into being good on this earth with the false promise of a perfect eternal afterlife.

I’m convinced that heaven and hell are right here on earth. Hell is being born into a poor family through no fault of their own, being raped tortured murdered. Heaven is being born into a wealthy family through nothing other than luck and having every opportunity land in their lap.

I am sorry for what you had to experience, and hope you find some peace with all this.

All I can say is you have a distorted view of wealth, in my opinion. To me, my wealth is my health, and I have been blessed ten times over with good health that allows me to do the things I love every day. I wouldn't trade my health for 1 million dollars.

Like Provience said, it's about love. You know...I know you're angry with God, because you lost your mother at a young age, but honestly, man...that year you spent with your mom might have never happened if she never got cancer. Maybe you never would've grown as close to her. Who knows, but if you really look at it, something good might have come out of all that. Everything with God isn't cupcakes and rainbows, and God never says you won't suffer as a believer. Look at Job.

 

[JR4X]

Love. love is the difference. To take a popular example, biden is wealthy and his kids were born into a wealthy family, they have lived in and created their own personal hell. wealth is significantly less important than love. you can be poor as shit, born into a family of love and experience heaven in poverty.

love is the tool that sells every religion. even satanists and cults, they sell themselves on love.

I know both love and hate very intimately. Aside from a brief spell of hate fueled self destruction I’ve remained the person my mother wanted me to be. I realized I never needed “faith” or an ancient book of bedtime stories to be a good person. Mom taught me the difference between right and wrong through love. Her littlest ones didn’t get the same lesson and it shows. My turn on this earth has been heavenly, a lot of success happiness and love. My baby brother’s life has been hell. Addiction, isolation, in and out of jail.

 

[Provience]

I know both love and hate very intimately. Aside from a brief spell of hate fueled self destruction I’ve remained the person my mother wanted me to be. I realized I never needed “faith” or an ancient book of bedtime stories to be a good person. Mom taught me the difference between right and wrong through love. Her littlest ones didn’t get the same lesson and it shows. My turn on this earth has been heavenly, a lot of success happiness and love. My baby brother’s life has been hell. Addiction, isolation, in and out of jail.

yeah that is why i strongly believe the difference is not money or success measured as value. I know it is a minor thing to pick on in your long and quality post, that's why i wanted to see if i could seperate it out, it is a common claim. addiciton, isolation, those are self hate type of things. This is where so many people who are "born again" hit that super religious pink cloud, religion often provides them the first real outlet and first real, deep, opportunity for self love.

i'm not saying that as a great positive for religion or whatever. i'd like to figure out a great secular way to get people that way, but honestly, the structure that religion has had thousands of years to grind on is highly successful.

 

[Rockbuggy84]

When Biden wins, all the morons will stop believing in their new found religion of “The Covid” and act like it never happened. “HEIL COVID!!!”

 

[ev13wt]

When Biden wins, all the morons will stop believing in their new found religion of “The Covid” and act like it never happened. “HEIL COVID!!!”

Yea... no.

 

[Rockbuggy84]

Yea... no.

Funny how covid is currently irrelevant and when it’s election time, no matter how contagious, the cdc tells you it’s ok to go out and vote. But yeah, your lord and savior Covid is real.

But thanks for admitting you’re a moron. That’s one of the first steps

 

[JR4X]

I am sorry for what you had to experience, and hope you find some peace with all this.

All I can say is you have a distorted view of wealth, in my opinion. To me, my wealth is my health, and I have been blessed ten times over with good health that allows me to do the things I love every day. I wouldn't trade my health for 1 million dollars.

Like Provience said, it's about love. You know...I know you're angry with God, because you lost your mother at a young age, but honestly, man...that year you spent with your mom might have never happened if she never got cancer. Maybe you never would've grown as close to her. Who knows, but if you really look at it, something good might have come out of all that. Everything with God isn't cupcakes and rainbows, and God never says you won't suffer as a believer. Look at Job.

I am angry, but I’m not angry on behalf of myself. I was trying to keep it short and in brevity maybe left out some necessary thoughts. I’m angry on behalf of my baby sister and brother and all of my mother’s grandchildren. I’ve been blessed in life far and above anything I deserve. My littlest brother has been deprived of the love, luck, and clarity that lead to the same kind of things I’ve been so lucky to have. All 5 of Susan Rants’s kids struggle differently from that event, and each one of us turned into atheists or agnostics completely on our own. I don’t even care about money, or wealth. The thought I was trying to put forth is this.

There are more kids born into poverty and abuse through no fault of their own. Than there are in situations such as the Biden kids. Hell on earth is making it to adulthood through any number of struggles to find out that those shitheads were handed everything on a silver platter and couldn’t make it work. Again I’m not angry for my situation, I’m angry for the less fortunate.

 

[FleshEater]

I am angry, but I’m not angry on behalf of myself. I was trying to keep it short and in brevity maybe left out some necessary thoughts. I’m angry on behalf of my baby sister and brother and all of my mother’s grandchildren. I’ve been blessed in life far and above anything I deserve. My littlest brother has been deprived of the love, luck, and clarity that lead to the same kind of things I’ve been so lucky to have. All 5 of Susan Rants’s kids struggle differently from that event, and each one of us turned into atheists or agnostics completely on our own. I don’t even care about money, or wealth. The thought I was trying to put forth is this.

There are more kids born into poverty and abuse through no fault of their own. Than there are in situations such as the Biden kids. Hell on earth is making it to adulthood through any number of struggles to find out that those shitheads were handed everything on a silver platter and couldn’t make it work. Again I’m not angry for my situation, I’m angry for the less fortunate.

I think I get where you're going. The odd thing is, even the worst in America still have it better than some third world countries. Third world countries also have very spiritual people.

 

[Sterlingfire]

I used to believe in nothing. Used to think we could be good on our own. The past few years have renewed my faith in Jesus, and the Lord. I'm not good or great at it, but I try every day. I can't explain it, but look around, and tell me...when morality is subjective and not absolute; then what is actually moral? Killing unborn children? Killing children up to the day they're born? The morality of communist parties? Giving pedophiles a pass as they suffer from uncontrollable mental illness? The morality of Antifa or BLM?

All of these are subjective, as some people legitimize things like Antifa, BLM, Stalin, the list goes on. There are people in this country that find it absolutely morally acceptable to kill unborn children. I find most things people find morally acceptable to reprehensible.

None of that is morally sound. Those are things that you WILL have to judge yourself for in the moments before/ during/ after death. No matter how you obligate yourself to morals in the physical world, you will be subjected to judge your real self(where God is inside imo) and that decides what happens to your soul. Back to the collective, or another go round in what could be described as hell, the physical world... people who rape, murder, diddle, mutilate, or otherwise conduct evil will be somehow punished, by their psyche in the end. If you think no punishment in the physical world means there must be a God to punish in the afterlife, i think you are partially right, i just don't think it's a single entity. I feel like it's the little voice in your head that tells you not to do morally wrong things. If you say you don't have that, you're lying or can block it out.

And i could be absolutely full of shit too Probably am, most likely the case.

 

[grumpy356]

Death of dogs, kids, and innocent beings colors my views on a "higher power"

There is a quote I heard and I believe it was from Dostoyevsky and it was something along the lines of "with all the evil and suffering in the world, if there is an all powerful and ever present god, who oversees this and does nothing, and I make it to heaven where God handed me the keys to the gates of heaven , I would throw them in his face, because someone with the power to stop it and refuses to intervene is no god I would follow".

That is the idea, but not the exact words he used, but it some up my view on any omniscient god.

EDIT: I am a Taoist though, but that is a belief in the way the world and nature works, but I subscribe to no dogma.

 

[gladman]

We are all connected. Pray / send energy / good thoughts - I think it's all the same thing with different names.

ghey

 

[gladman]

I think I get where you're going. The odd thing is, even the worst in America still have it better than some third world countries. Third world countries also have very spiritual people.

the poorer the country the more religious they are. The faith among the poorest people is stronger than in the richest countries. Rich countries tend to not be churchgoers/devout in the same numbers as poor countries. It is an interesting chunk of data.

 

[Provience]

the poorer the country the more religious they are. The faith among the poorest people is stronger than in the richest countries. Rich countries tend to not be churchgoers/devout in the same numbers as poor countries. It is an interesting chunk of data.

which is all the more proof that religion absolutely provides something intangible. any forced attempts to deny it will never be successful.

"we are all united in success" - trump 2020 presidential debate