Religion: Fact Or Fiction?

The universe is still expanding outward at a phenomenial rate, like an explosion acts. Also proven that it's slowing down, like an explosion does.

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"-when you yourself know that a thing is good, that it is not blamable, that it is praised by the wise and when practiced and observed that it leads to happiness, then follow that thing.”

“	Originally Posted By: Wingnut as for heaven.......either a memory of some form gnosis.....or a way to control the population (do what your yold and youll go to heaven)......or its real.........or something else.............	”

Quite possibly very true.

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Oh THAT'S how that works!

Okay time to get your pen & paper; call all your friends to help you because here are a couple of proofs that Allah is real if you’re truly up for the challenge: http://63.175.194.25/index.php?ln=en...QR=13804&dgn=4
http://63.175.194.25/index.php?ln=en...QR=23487&dgn=4

I'd like to see what your able to come up with when your done.

“	Originally Posted By: baqi9 Okay time to get your pen & paper; call all your friends to help you because here are a couple of proofs that Allah is real if you’re truly up for the challenge: http://63.175.194.25/index.php?ln=en...QR=13804&dgn=4 http://63.175.194.25/index.php?ln=en...QR=23487&dgn=4 I'd like to see what your able to come up with when your done.	”

Very interesting, and while there are some good points in these, there still is no hard verifiable scientific fact that Allah exists other than somebody else saying so, as well as the words of a book.

Many scientific things were discovered in the past, some forgotten before being rediscovered in today's world; for instance the Taoist Yin/Yang theory basically says for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, something proven by science as being a true, hard, fact. This could also explain the explanation of the sea/ocean losing color at the depth listed and could expalin its reasoning as stated, there were incredible scientific minds and discoveries in the past that came from the East/Middle East.

But still no scientific proof that Allah does indeed exist, nothing but faith and the words of a book and other people.

I have a book that states I appeared out of thin air, have the strength of a million men, can live on the sun, don't need to breathe, eat, or sleep, and can fly through space at ten times the speed of light, as well as travel through time and space and between dimensions, as well as having a group of followers and a prophet(Brainiac) who verify the truth of this, so it all must indeed be true.

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Oh THAT'S how that works!

Hrmph. Nonsense. The statements below are only true if one accepts YOUR definitions, your stated outlook. I do not. As a polytheist, I believe in the Deity(s) in those religions. I just do not accept them as defined by their followers. I do not believe in their superiority/ supremacy.

It can be debated, whether you like it or not. You can think others are wrong, but we can express our opinion.

It's exactly the prosletyzing/ superiority complex, one true way 'ism of the current monotheistic trilogy by some of their followers that creates intolerance, hate, and dissention, and a lot of the mayhem in the world -IMO. Not to mention it usually brings the followers away from the positive messages of love and other teachings of their Deity. How about if people have their own definitions and let others have theirs. A Deity may be supreme to you, does not mean I have to believe it as supreme to me.

-aaradia

“	Originally Posted By: JadeMantis By definition the Jewish/Christian/Islam is THE supreme deity He/She/It (sex is really not an appropriate concept) is defined as "The Self Existant One". The one that precedes ALL, the one that is subject to NONE. There cannot be any debate over the supremacy of this deity. Argue the existance, argue over which conceptualisations/approximations are most accurate, argue over who was a true spokesman for, which is the right colour tunic to wear, but supremacy is a matter of definition. JM PS The question about want went before is irrelevant. Religion is a human construct. An attempted response. "The Self Existant One" would, once again by definition, precede any religion(s) attempting to come to terms with this reality. PPS Having a Supreme deity does not a supreme religion make....	”

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I must not fear.Fear is the mind-killer.Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.I will face my fear.I will permit it to pass over me & through me.& when it has gone I will turn to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.Only I will remain.F.Herbert

<<for instance the Taoist Yin/Yang theory basically says for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, something proven by science as being a true, hard, fact>>

not really.. the yin yang is a mirror of absolute opposition it forms duality. However yin and yang are always relational to something.

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You are not where you have been and you are not where you are going you are only here.

“	Originally Posted By: aqira <<for instance the Taoist Yin/Yang theory basically says for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, something proven by science as being a true, hard, fact>> not really.. the yin yang is a mirror of absolute opposition it forms duality. However yin and yang are always relational to something.	”

As I said "Basically", a simplified way of saying that for every action there is another action in response, Yin does this Yang does that in response, whether it be counter, work in cooperation, or to balance.

I throw a punch straight at you, acting as Yang, you block, being Yin, and then recounter with a strike, now being Yang. And so the interaction continues untill balance settles in and everything goes back to normal.

Still a theory that has been investigated and stated true by scientific research

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Oh THAT'S how that works!

“	Originally Posted By: aaradia Hrmph. Nonsense. The statements below are only true if one accepts YOUR definitions, your stated outlook.	”

Perhaps you misunderstand my point? You cannot debate what someone defines as God without using HIS definition. In the case of the religions I mentioned, they define a "self-existant", non-created deity. You can disagree that this actually exists (as I stated in my post), but you cannot change this fact or equate it to some deity of a lesser status (even if the god they worship might turn out to be actually some lesser spirit being). It would no longer be their DEFINITION of God. That is why their deity is BY DEFINITION supreme/greater than many. I never said that we should all agree to this.

“	I do not. As a polytheist, I believe in the Deity(s) in those religions. I just do not accept them as defined by their followers. I do not believe in their superiority/ supremacy.	”

But it is no longer the same deity THEY believe in is it? Like I said you might be right that there is a lesser deity pretending to be superior, but if this is the case, then they no longer meet the definition that the others work with.
Do not underestimate the importance of the comment I made in the PS to understanding the concepts I was trying to convey.

“	It can be debated, whether you like it or not. You can think others are wrong, but we can express our opinion.	”

What can be debated? You do not like their definition? It is wrong? You have a better one? Fine. I said that CAN be debated in my post. What cannot be debated is the issue of who created their definition of God. It is defined to be the uncreated, self-existant, origin of all. They may be wrong, but that is THEIR definition. If you impose YOUR definition, you are not talking about the same thing anymore. Do not confuse labels and the meanings they denote within the different sign systems.

“	It's exactly the prosletyzing/ superiority complex, one true way 'ism of the current monotheistic trilogy by some of their followers that creates intolerance, hate, and dissention, and a lot of the mayhem in the world -IMO.	”

Hmmm, sound to me like you have issues with some mono-theist RELIGIONS and you are projecting it onto my post.
Firstly, the concept of the trilogy is a conceptual construct created by, and without any meaning outside of, a religous framework.
Secondly, only a portion of these religions endorse the concept of the trilogy.
Thirdly, I had hoped to show in my post that there is a world of difference tween religions and the "self-existant".

“	Not to mention it usually brings the followers away from the positive messages of love and other teachings of their Deity.	”

Whoa, steady there. Not all of the religions have agreed that LOVE is indeed the teaching of the supreme - even if it is the popular view today. This falls firmly in matters that my original post stated was debatable, or are you not agreeing that the message is debatable?

“	How about if people have their own definitions and let others have theirs. A Deity may be supreme to you, does not mean I have to believe it as supreme to me.	”

Maybe we have very different frames of reference, but this seems like a paraphrase of the underlying logic in my post.
In other words: I cannot use my definition of what God is when making logical arguments about how your (or christian/taoist/etc) God(s) interacts with creation or whatever else is under discussion. That is what I thought I said.
That means asking Islam or Christianity who created God is a senseless question. That question is by definition a pointless question to someone of such a belief.

JM

<<I throw a punch straight at you, acting as Yang, you block, being Yin, and then recounter with a strike, now being Yang. And so the interaction continues untill balance settles in and everything goes back to normal.>>

well to be accurate...you throw a strike yang, I absorb it to neutral state yin, neutral state no one dominates as if there were no strike.

But yin yang is more like up and down are dependant on the other to exsit...yet as stated it is relational as in up/down requires a relationship to an object


Still a theory that has been investigated and stated true by scientific research

agreed duality is a proven fact
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You are not where you have been and you are not where you are going you are only here.

JadeMantis, I think you are right, I misunderstood the point of your post. I thought your were saying in essense "God is this way, you can't debate it-end of sentence." Those sort of statements do get my ire up! Obviously, I missed your original point, which is very close to my outlook.

You can't prove your belief of religion to others. I have no wish to do so. (In fact, my religion is growing too fast) I respect others paths and am happy they have found something that works for them. I just wish those that prosletize would respect others who have a different belief system.

However, because most anti- gay/ lesbian AND anti-Pagan religous bigotry I have seen/ experienced comes from people throwing their religous system at me like I have to live by it, or say that American laws should be influenced by it, I DO have personal issues with those that misuse (IMO) religion in this way.

gotta go to work
-aaradia

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I must not fear.Fear is the mind-killer.Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.I will face my fear.I will permit it to pass over me & through me.& when it has gone I will turn to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.Only I will remain.F.Herbert

“	Originally Posted By: aqira well to be accurate...you throw a strike yang, I absorb it to neutral state yin, neutral state no one dominates as if there were no strike.	”

Yin is only neutral when at rest, same as Yang, but when Yang is over-active thus Yin reacts as in strike/block, but it all depends upon what your view of Yin/Yang is, some schools, spiritual beliefs, philosophies, have slightly different characteristics of Yin/Yang.

I agree with your entire post though.

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Oh THAT'S how that works!

I believe in more a situation where we don't really have free will at all. I believe that every thing you do or say or that happens is supposeded to happen exactly when and how it does. I believe everything happens for a reason and though we may not always (or ever) know what the reason is it is supposed to happen exactly the way it does. We were all supposed to read this post when we read it. We were all supposed to interprit it the way we did and we are all supposed to respond to it exactly the way we do (whether we post it here completely dissmiss it or what have you.) I believe that you put into every day and every situation as much as you are supposed to. If you are /really/ supposed to get up 7am you will. but if you had to be at work at 8 am and you set up 3 alarm clocks and still sleep till noon you were supposed to. It may not make your day, or boss, a very happy one, but if your ment to be happy you will be. I just think that isnt anything you can do to change your life, but that doesnt mean that I think that once you get into something there is no way out, it just means that if you are supposed to get out of it you will get out exactly when and how you were supposed to, wether or not you do it possitively or negatively. I dont know who made decicion on how the life is going to run. It could have been a god, it could be fate, it couldnt have been dicided years ago or it could be an ongoing thing, but I believe that who ever it is it isnt soley up to me. or really up to me at all.

I suppose thats a good idea..........when one wants to deny responsibility for ones actions/choices. Other than that, I find it hard to belive. There might be some truth to it though.

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"-when you yourself know that a thing is good, that it is not blamable, that it is praised by the wise and when practiced and observed that it leads to happiness, then follow that thing.”

Every thing you do is still something that you've done. I take responsibility for everything I've done, be it good or bad. I know what is right and what is wrong and I try to do what is right. I could let myself slip and lie or cheat or be a mean person, but I dont want to. If I am ment to do any of that I will and if I'm meant to try to be a good person I will. I put in as much energy as I'm supposed to and a lot of the things I do I find that I put in a lot more energy than a lot of people to do the right thing. I never use this belief as a way out or an excuse. I take full responcibility for everything I do. I just have a basic belief that everything happens the way its supposed to. Just because something happens and one reaction is taken doesnt mean there cant be further reactions. I never just say..well what happened was supposed to happen so lets not try to fix it when something goes wrong. I may say well what happened happened and there is nothing we can do to go back and change it, and it happened for a reason they way it was supposed to, lets see what can be done to fix it.

All things are seen to come from no thing, we can watch micro organisms just pop into existence and back out again even seen at the atomic level following the same polar completeness. because they are small we can see, compared to our human body scale big things (to us) we are unable to see this happen on the larger scale. Sound can only exist if there is no sound. We came from no where and return to no where, how can one talk about "no thing" without a contrived and fabricated way?

If we look into the sky is everything equally dispersed by weight and size like from a big bang? with out a contractive force at the same time the night sky would look very different to us. stop looking for beginning and end, there is no end to smallness, no end to largeness, no beginning, no end.

If everything is in gods hands those humans are not responsible for their own actions. God gives them life and holds them up and god puts them down with death following along. Divine human beings or real people become one with creation and take over the mechanism and are responsible for each other and all things with out separation they see all as one and thus are outside of time, birth, death, good, bad .

Western religion and science is the same philosophical blunder of the combined efforts of ancient Greek philosophers and older Hindu mysticisum/religon with there being two worlds and independent existence this has been creating the western civilization world view and subsequent death march.

Science/Greek philosophy has it as matter is cause for creation and religion has it as god is cause. This is based on a false view for something to contain and penetrate everything it has to have no form, not a thing, “no thing” which causes movement by distinction of two polar complete aspects which is responsible for eternal motion and creating life forms that depend on one another to come into existence to begin with. Yin and yang also depend on something to operate use any pair of opposites they depend on something to have their natures and complete each other.