@MR207 538213 wrote:

Mhmm. You call a complete and sudden disappearence of cancer fucking luck. There is seriously something wrong with that. Winning the lottery and having cancer, then suddenly not having it are two COMPLETELY different situations, I don’t even know how you can compare the two.

They are comparable because both are possible but rare.

If you believe in God and you’re so certain of heaven and hell then surely you also believe that the British royal family are all lizards. There’s no evidence for it but quite a few troubled minds think it is so for some reason,

Worth watching the religion one even just for the last minute and a half!

@photographthesun 538229 wrote:

and about 2 mins in ish he is talking about “miracles”.

Yeah hes kinda hinting at the self-centered nature of believing that miracles happen to you specifically

If god performs miricles and helps people over come cancer, why does he not help kids in sweat shops, the sex trade and dying from starvation?

@MR207 538211 wrote:

Oh really?? She lived didn’t she? And when people feel a force pick them up and feel hands on them, what do you think that is? Do you think they’re crazy and need to be locked up?

Firstly regarding your other examples or miracles you have to understand how odds work, just because the odds of something occurring a certain way are infinitesimal that doesn’t mean that it isn’t going to go down that way (in fact it makes it all the more likely than on certain occasions this will be the outcome). If you were to throw a billion pound coins into the air an infinite amount of times you will eventually see all possible combinations of the coins being arranged including times where they all landed heads up and every other combination.

People being killed by lightning strikes or being hit by meteors are billions to one odds but it still occasionally happens. Is this also an example of a miracle? Or can a miracle only be such if the unlikely event is perceived as being a good outcome?

Secondly, I have died. I used to have chronic asthma as a kid and was constantly in and out of hospital. Respiratory arrest was common for me and once full cardiac arrest. I have felt the forces that you are talking about both on those occasions AND while taking certain psychedelics and dissociatives. These feelings can also be produced when certain areas of the brain are stimulated by electromagnetism. So these feelings are fully explained and understood by science. Ask many of the DMT users on the forum and they will tell you that they have felt the presence of benign beings or spoken to deities and otherworldly entities. It doesn’t mean that those experiences were real.

Once again, the brain is a hugely complicated organ they we have only a limited understanding of. It is capable of incredible things. Males have been able to lactate for example when the Mother has died during childbirth. Hypno gastric band surgery is hugely successful in treating obesity with no actual surgery being necessary. The list of examples goes on and on.

Also going back to your example that I have quoted. Why would Got intervene (when we’re lead to believe that he doesn’t interfere in Earthly matters) in saving someones life, only for them to die at a later date? (we’re all going to die). What would be the point in that? Is it that this person is now going to go on to find the cure for cancer or save someone else’s life? And if so, what would be the point there? Why would God choose to save some people and let others die in the most appalling ways? (tortured to death by madmen, burned alive etc). Doesn’t really seem fair does it?

@photographthesun 538240 wrote:

I just got a delivery of 500 bang snapper things (you throw them on the floor and they go bang!!!) so I need to go play!

[ATTACH=CONFIG]84208[/ATTACH]

500, £1.95 including postage!

And you Sir are awesome!

@Lshak 538267 wrote:

I’d rather live a life in poverty and an eternity in heaven than a kick ass time on earth and an eternity in hell, suffering and in torment. I dot like saying these kind of things because I shouldn’t just anyone, but just think about it, wisely.

Riddle me this though. How do you know your religion is right? What about the Hindus, the Shinto, the Taoists, Buddhists, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, Jainists, etc? They’re all as firmly set in their beliefs as you are. What authority have you to say that they are wrong?

@Lshak 538267 wrote:

I’d rather live a life in poverty and an eternity in heaven than a kick ass time on earth and an eternity in hell, suffering and in torment. I dot like saying these kind of things because I shouldn’t just anyone, but just think about it, wisely.

And you are more sure that heaven exists than it doesnt? And you have given thought as to why you think this and you are sure as you can be that its not just external influences rather than your own choice?

If you answer as I think you will then go for it even if your wrong you wont be happy living a life where you think you might go to hell. So this path, even if you are wrong about your faith, is still the logical choice.

As long as you have felt this way for a while I would not be rash.

@Izbeckistan 538236 wrote:

If god performs miricles and helps people over come cancer, why does he not help kids in sweat shops, the sex trade and dying from starvation?

Why is there injustice if there is a Most High?

Because people are very often selfish and cause injustice with their greed and insistence on domination. If you can offer an alternative to kids in sweat shops, sexual exploitation and starvation, are you not helping to reduce the problems and in your own way, performing a miracle?

Show me an Atheist Charity that does these things… actually, there are a few. But a helluva lot of charity is based on religious organisations.

Why throw out the baby with the bath water over disagreement in belief systems?

@Pat McDonald 538273 wrote:

Why is there injustice if there is a Most High?

Because people are very often selfish and cause injustice with their greed and insistence on domination.

But if god made everything and is all knowing firstly he created the concept of greed and suffering and he gave it to us. And if he is all knowing he must have seen the suffering his design would create, so why not create something better?

Its also hard to argue religion has done more harm than good given all the wars current and past.

@Lshak 538267 wrote:

I’d rather live a life in poverty and an eternity in heaven than a kick ass time on earth and an eternity in hell, suffering and in torment. I dot like saying these kind of things because I shouldn’t just anyone, but just think about it, wisely.

This is the other problem I have with the big three religions. Believe that this is right or suffer eternal damnation in hell. Doesn’t really seem fair does it? Seeing as how we have only geography or the beliefs of our parents or peers to steer us in the right direction.

For example: If I were borne in a part of the world where say Islam is the order of they day and because the majority of people surrounding me believe in the same thing I am bound to feel that this is they way that is correct and so I would be pleased in the knowledge that as long as I stick to the rules, I am guaranteed a place in heaven.

Now apply this to each of the big three. Christianity, Islam and judaism. They are all convinced that they are correct and presumably are sure in their knowledge that they are not going to hell. But they can’t all be correct.

I would just like to add that I am not an atheist and not exactly an agnostic.