I understand what you mean and I would imagine with over 22000 posts one finds a good group of people to enjoy certain topics with. With my meager 17 posts I should be happy to get any reply. ha ha

In otherwords I wish you a great day over there in that beautiful country. I am off to a Australian Restaurant called Outback to have a great meal and a pint of Foster! Ha ha

Thank you for your wisdom and kindness. It was a pleasure. :)

I'm in complete agreement with you 100%.

I too believe that all humans are necessarily agnostic (without knowledge) of the true nature of reality. And that certainly includes me because I'm just a human like everyone else.

And I confess to being 'agnostic' (i.e. without absolute knowledge)

I personally enjoy entertaining various spiritual philosophies and traditions. I treat them as though they are "real". And that's my own personal choice, and I don't expect anyone else to accept my spiritual ponderings or activities. For me they have 'meditative' value if nothing else. I could even argue for various pragmatic secular benefits that I get from performing various "spiritual" rituals.

But I would like people to at least respect my right to ponder and participate in these activities. As long I'm not harming anyone in the process, like you say.

If they want to view my activities as nothing more than a hobby or "mythological reenactments", that's perfectly fine with me. I have no problem with that whatsoever.

However, I do have problem with religious "proselytizers" who are continually accusing people of "rejecting God". Not even just for myself, but as an adult I have decided to speak out against those religious zealots, because when I was a child I wish that adults would have spoken out against such nasty behavior on my behalf.

So you might even say that I do it for the children.

And now I'm off to "object" some more,...

I don't point fingers Cowboy. You are the one who keeps demanding that we accept the Biblical doctrine, yet you seem to be in denial of what that very doctrine says:

Jesus own words:

Matt.25:46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.


So there you go buddy. Your Jesus' himself saying that someone is going to be sent to "everlasting punishment".

You just said, "God will 'send' no one to everlasting punishment."

But clearly Jesus in the Bible does not agree with you.

So what are you going to do now? Reject Jesus, or confess that your God does indeed send at least some people into everlasting punishment?

Are you going to support these doctrines or not?

What good is it going to do you to deny what they have to say?

Evidently even you don't like that very notion.

But according to Matthew, Jesus himself confirms it.

If you're going to proselytize a religion at least get your facts right.

Didn't say no one will go to everlasting punishment. Only said God will send no one to everlasting punishment. Say you get a paper cut, are you going to blame the piece of paper for the cut? Or is it your fault for not being careful and causing it to occur? It is people's own choices and decisions that will send them to everlasting punishment, not God, not Jesus, not anyone but someone's own self.

Give it up Cowboy.

We're talking about a supposedly omnipotent God here. If there exists a place of everlasting punishment it can only be because this God sadistically created such a place.

There's no getting around it. You can't blame everlasting punishment on anyone but this God.

You'll just have to recognize that this God is responsible for what he creates. You don't seem to be able to do that. You always want to make excuses for this God and blame everything he does on someone else.

Yes there is a place and God created it, not denying that. This place for people whom don't care for forgiveness. I assume cause with forgiveness comes repentance, but people are to prideful and self centered worried about their own desires. This is a place whom flat out refuse to obey our heavenly father. But again, people brought this upon their own self. God originally made a paradise for us to live for eternity and never have any form of hardship whatsoever. No pain, no disease, nothing. But again people couldn't stay obedient and wanted to fulfill their own desires and we were kicked out of that. God offers a chance for us to return if we show that we are willing to be obedient.

A place where people choose to do their own will on their time and how they wish to do it wouldn't much of a paradise now would it? And these people willingly choose to behave in a way that denies them the glories gift of heaven. They do it willfully. They CHOOSE themselves not to receive the gift of heaven and in turn choose eternal damnation. This isn't something brought upon them just because God wishes for it to be. Again, this is done by their own will, their own choices, their own actions, and ultimately their own decision.

Cowboy,

I'm glad that you're happy with your religious beliefs.

Like I say, I see no value or wisdom in that scenario. I personally do not wish to believe in such a inept or demented God that would even create a situation where such a fate could be possible for anyone.

So it's most certainly not a religion that I would care to believe in on pure faith. And I see absolutely no rational reasons to believe in it either.

So thank you very much for describing your beliefs to me. I just don't find your religion to be acceptable to my standards of what I feel a truly divine being should be like.

Besides, I like my conclusions of the ancient Hebrews writings far better:

1. The Old Testament is most likely just Zeus-like fables.
2. The Jesus story was probably sparked by a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva.
3. The New Testament is clearly nothing more than hearsay rumors.

That works very well for me.

I'm happy for you :). You show great characteristics. You're not necessarily "head strong or arrogant". But you hold strong to what you feel to be the truth and don't sway cause someone(s) disagree. That is a great attribute. But want to give you a couple things to think about before I head off to bed.

1. If there was no punishment for wrong doings(evil)/disobedience, what would be the bad thing about being disobedient/doing bad(evil)? What harm would come of doing as such? Why wouldn't people just do as they wish, attempt of world domination, rape, thievery, and much much more can be added to the list.

2. Anything of yesterday is purely "hearsay rumors". There is absolutely no way to prove something(s) happened in the yesterday if one doesn't wish to believe it. Documented proof only holds as much power as one is willing to give it, photos/videos are the same.

There are plenty of atheists who don't believe in a God at all who don't go around doing as they wish, raping, thievery and much much more as you suggest. We simply don't need a threatening religion as a "deterrent".

Is that what keeps you a decent person? Fear of punishment?

Or is it a lust for eternal life that keeps you on the straight and narrow path?

You're the one who's suggesting that if we didn't have these incentives we'd be horrible people. So Is this true for you?

Would you be a horrible person if you thought you could get away with it?

If not, then why would you think that should be the case for anyone else?

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." - Albert Einstein




No, everything isn't "hearsay rumors" some people actually wrote down their very own thoughts. The authors of the New Testament confess that their writings are second-hand hearsay. Nowhere in the bible does it claim to contain any actual writings that came directly from Jesus.

Besides, even if I accept your words here, then all you are saying is that all religions and spiritual philosophies are on precisely equal footing (including Greek Mythology). I'm willing to accept that.

And when I do accept that I find that there are far more positive, intelligent, and favorable pictures of spirituality and ideas of God that I find to be far more believable on pure rational grounds.

Eastern Mysticism for sure.

When things are known to be hearsay we must move forward to using other tools to decide whether we should believe them. I use three tools in particular.

1. Is there any independent evidence to back something up?
2. Does the information sound rational to me?
3. Does this sound like something a divine entity would support?

In the case of the Hebrew writings I find that there does not exist any independent evidence to back up their claims of divine intervention and supernatural miracles. In fact, many of the claims they make are so profound I would absolutely expect to see independent evidence for them but no such evidence exists.

When I consider the rationality of their stories I dismiss them very quickly as being extremely irrational, IMHO. Their stories simply don't support the character traits that they have assigned to their God, IMHO.

When I ask whether the stories sound like they came from an all-wise God, or by unwise men, it always appear to me that the latter makes far more sense.

So there's nothing there worthy of consideration as far as I can see.

a believer with Faith is therefore agnostic ....

for a believer to claim that they know because they believe is a contradiction ....because why would they need faith if they knew

faith is the mother of agnosticism

Cowboy asked:




Abra quoted Einstein:
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." - Albert Einstein

Now Listen up Cowboy and I will tell you the truth of it.

The law of attraction states, "That which is like, unto itself is drawn."

We also have heard that if you live by the sword you will probably die by the sword.

Everything in your life and the lives of those around you is affected by the law of attraction. It is the basis of everything you see manifesting. It is the basis of everything that comes into your experience. What your thoughts put out, you are creating and attracting.

If you decide to lead a life of crime, you will create and attract like persons into your experience because by choosing that, you will begin attracting all of that into your life experience.

You may think you are going to get away with something if there is no God to punish you, but you will attract your own punishment by your own thoughts and your own acts. You will be punished by those you attract as you lead a life of crime.

It is the law of the universe, the law of attraction and the law of creation.

Would still be hearsay rumors. There would be no way for you to prove that these things happened some odd years down the road. Or even that these people wrote this down.



Yes I realize this. Was speaking of ALL the atheists. But it's not a threat or "deterrent". We are not made aware of these things to scare us not to do them. The laws of the land, are we made aware of them to "scare" us from doing the crime? Or are we just made aware of them just so we know? We are told of the laws from God, so we are aware of the consequences of certain actions. Not specifically to "scare" us.

Example:

You are walking down the street about 10:00pm. A cop sees you and writes you a ticket because it's illegal to walk down the street after dark unless it's an emergency. But you were never aware of this law, so you didn't know.

Would it be fair to write you a ticket for that, even if you were not aware of the law?

That is why we are informed about the different laws from God and told of the consequence. So it wouldn't be a surprise when one received the consequence for doing such an action(s).

There are no "laws of God" that are written by men to dispense to us.

There are only three universal laws.

1. The law of attraction. (Which is also the hermetic law of vibration.)

2. The Law of Creation.

3. The Law of Allowance.

There are no other universal laws.

So then you agree that the Bible is nothing more than hearsay rumors no matter who wrote it.

I have no problem with that and I agree.




But we haven't been told of any "laws from God".

As you've just confessed, all we have are hearsay rumors of such things. Moreover we have TONS of hearsay rumors of all sorts of gods. We have absolutely no reason to believe the hearsay rumors that came from the ancient Hebrews than we have for believing the hearsay rumors that came from the American Indians, or the Buddhists or Hindus from India, or Taoists from China, or the Wiccans from Northern Europe, etc.

These are all on equal footing.



Your example fails miserably here.

First off, you're comparing a supposedly all-wise omniscient supreme entity who can supposedly do anything with extremely inept and incapable humans who have no choice but to resort to extremely crude methods when it comes to trying to create and enforce laws.

So your very example implies that you feel that God is no wiser than mortal men.

Secondly, just because men use "punishment" as a deterrent doesn't mean that it's an all-wise method. Clearly it doesn't work very well since we still have crime.

Thirdly your comparison doesn't make sense anyway, because as I have pointed out above all we have concerning any "laws of God" are conflicting hearsay rumors from many different cultures.

You're suggesting that if I follow the laws of Buddhism I would be violating the laws suggested by the ancient Hebrews.

So? Why should I believe the Hebrews over the Buddhists?

You keep working from an extremely narrow-minded point of view that the Bible is the ONLY SOURCE of spiritual information that exists. And that is FAR from truth.

~~~~~~~

So you're claim that we have been given "fair warning" of the laws and consequences of breaking them is FALSE.

We haven't been given "fair warning". There would be nothing "fair" about a God placing people on a planet that has a gazillion spiritual hearsay rumors and philosophies and expecting them to GUESS which one is TRUTH.

There would be nothing "fair" (or righteous) about that at all my friend. But your God is supposed to be "righteous" thus this proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that these ancient Abrahamic religions cannot be true. Because they are clearly "unfair" and thus they are "unrighteous".

Why are they unfair?

Well, not only would we need to GUESS that they are the true word of God over other religions and spirituality. But we'd even need to GUESS which of the Abrahamic religions are TRUE!

For all I know the Muslims have it right and the Christians have it all wrong! Or maybe the Jews have it right?

It's anyone's GUESS.

So you're suggesting that God expects us to GUESS correctly otherwise he'll cast us into a state of everlasting punishment?

That is totally unfair, and therefore unrighteous. Thus your God would need to be an unrighteous God.

So your claims about your religion cannot be true.

In fact, this leads me to believe that if I'm forced to have to GUESS, about spirituality my BEST GUESS would be Eastern Mysticism because it's the most intelligent and wisest spiritual philosophy I know of.

Surely if there exist an all-wise supreme creator, our best GUESS would be to choose the wisest possible spiritual philosophy.

Thus Eastern Mysticism wins with no contest, IMHO.

And the ancient Hebrews flunk "Creative writing 101" because their stories don't even make any sense at all, and are riddled with contradictions and absurdities, IMHO.