First off, let me say this is an excellent post. I was thinking "Great, another religious thread just for the sake of more posts." I'm surprised, thank you.

Now for my story.

I was raised in a Catholic family, went to a Catholic school. Like most, I began to question things. The priest's answers were insufficient, and the bible's translation was too difficult to comprehend (good old King James). I became frustrated through the years, but Catholocism was all I knew. When I hit High School (public, finally!) I began to have discussions with people on religion, people who had different views than I did. Before this time, I simply accepted my faith "just because." I said my prayers each night mechanically, not even knowing the words that were droning out of my mouth.

As time pressed on, I made new friends with different views. One of my friends in particular is violently Athiest (still is) and he raised many questions that I couldn't answer. The more I thought and questioned, the more faith I lost. Eventually, without even realizing it, I became Agnostic. I still acknowledged the idea of a higher being or presence, but I had all but dismissed the Christian God of the bible. I had began to search for more answers to my questions, yet this search only brought more questions.

A few years later, I laid down in bed and prayed. I prayed for the first time in many years. This time, however, I thought about what I said. It wasn't mechanical, it was spoken from the heart. I felt an overwhelming presence inside of me, it was unlike anything I had ever experienced. It was a physical feeling, yet it said much. It is very hard to explain, but this feeling told me that my search was needed. It was important that I question things, and I will have answers. As soon as the feeling came it subsided. From that day forward I embraced my old Catholocism and I am still searching and questioning.

I appologize for not reading any previous posts, but I'm responding to the thread topic.

Legalize everything. It will save tax dollars, cut crime significantly, drugs can be taxed therefore creating a better economy. Weed should be legalized over all else, I still have a hard time figuring out how alcohol is legal and weed is not. Weed doesn't make you a horrible dangerous driver, it doesn't make you crazy to the point of beating your wife and kids. As for the harder drugs, legalize those too. The junkies will OD themselves and the problem will fix itself.

The problem I see with people like Devil-Itachi is that they are what I like to call "aggressively atheist". Not only do they not believe in G*d, they aggressively pursue their atheism in a way that resembles religious zealots. Zealots of any stripe are usually free from all logic anyway, so it's difficult to talk to them. The way I see it, however, it's very difficult to believe in G*d mainly because He never seems to show His face.

For myself; I don't believe in any higher power because I've never seen any evidence for it. Never seen any evidence against it either, but frankly that's not enough to convince me either. I won't say I DON'T believe in Him, just that I'm not sure. The same way I can't ever truly be sure if the universe is infinite or not. So long as there is no conclusive proof either way, it's sheer idiocy to make any kind of judgement call. I deplore scientists that just "believe" that the universe is infinite. They're making a cardinal sin of taking something on faith when there is not enough evidence to justify it. All of science is based on that.

As for free will, does nobody else think it's overrated? Apparently, we've been given such a wonderful gift as the ability to make our own decisions. What do we do with it? We murder each other over the pettiest things, we destroy hundreds of lives over tiny patches of land, we rape and steal and maim ... really, what good is this free will? Without it, we may be robots without any control over our actions, true, but we'd live in a utopia where there would be no poverty, no crime, no hate, no malice. Wouldn't that be worth the sacrifice of something that hasn't done us a whit of good anyway? And you might say, "there are good people in this world." Certainly there are. But not everyone is good. Not everyone CHOOSES to be good. And therein lies the problem. Why give them the choice to be bad in the first place? Why not take the choice from them, and FORCE them to be good?

Anyway, as for the Big Bang: there is evidence to support that, and evidence against. And not all evidence against is neccessarily aimed at disproving G*d either. One of the more popular ones is the fact that there seems to be not enough mass in the universe to justify the theory, thus the theory about "dark matter" that we can't detect. Oh right, dark matter. Is this like G*d then? Something we need to take on faith? I'm sorry, but if I can't detect it, I can't believe in it. It may very well be there, but until there's evidence for it I can't just "take it on faith".

In the end, most people like me, in answer to the question, "why DON'T you believe in G*d? There's no evidence saying he's NOT there ..." the answer would be, "why should I?" There just isn't any reason we have to believe in something we can't see evidence for. I suppose it only applies to people with a very strong scientific background like myself, who spent a lifetime making conclusions only based on sound evidence.

The fact is, science is as unlike faith as can possibly be. For a religious person, there never was evidence and never will be, but that's OK. For a scientist, EVERYTHING is based on evidence. For a religious person, "evidence" doesn't faze their beliefs, because they have faith. For a scientist, every theory is only true as long as new evidence doesn't come along to disprove it. Even our so-called "laws" can be bent or broken if empirical evidence provides a counterexample. For the longest time, Newton's "Laws" were thought to be absolute. Until Einstein came along.

As for Bible interpretation, what can I say. I've never read it, so I don't have any knowledge of it. All I CAN really say about the Bible is that I hate people who quote passages from it to put down others, as though every single thing you do is a sin against G*d and that you'd go to Hell forever and ever and a day. If that's the way Christians convert then no thank you, I get enough people screaming at me at work, I don't need any more thank you very much. I don't need nor desire some person constantly yelling, "You're going to Hell, young man! Do you not fear the fire and the brimstone?! You cannot be saved, you're a damned soul, may G*d have pity on you ..." And here I thought only the Calvanists were that depressing.

Opalescent

While our views oppose, that's one of the most constructive and well-though posts in this thread. Thank you.

"A decent post, except for the part where you state "G-- makes no difference whatsoever in anybody's life.." speak for yourself, not for everyone. God makes all the difference in my life."

This is an opinion as well. You may believe God does but is there any way of proving that? How much are you weighing other factors in with this and are you just using God as a funnel for these different factors?

I expect to get the same answer I received from my other post...nothing. That is the usual response for something like this on a religious thread. Ignored.

Don't expect to change many opinions on a religious thread. You'll be about as successful in a political one.

And the reason I'm posting here is Free Will, something you know all about. :)

cirthlanthelios

It loses the properties of an "opinion" when he speaks for everyone. Saying "God makes no difference in my life" is an opinion. If you came to this thread looking for proof, stick to the science threads. As was in the disclaimer of my original post on this thread, I am simply posting my personal views. And I don't expect or try to change your opinion, that's not the purpose of this thread.

Is it rational to oppose everything I say? Even if its true?

No, positive proof relies on evidence. Scientists don't just believe things without reason to.

Disproof is a logical fallacy. For example, how would you go about disproving my assertion that there is an invisible teapot orbiting round the sun? You'd obviously need to go to much trouble to even try disproving that, but ultimately would not be able to.

Observation, deduction, repeatable experimentation, peer review - they all need to work on positive proof. Science would be nowhere if disproof was given any merit in science.

RationalAtheist

There are few things in Catholocism I have found without reason. Religion relies on the ability to think outside the box. While observation, deduction, repeatable experimentation, and peer review are key components to scientific "proof," faith, philosophical thought, and questioning scripture are key components to religion. Like I have been saying throughout all of these religion threads, science can NOT disprove the existence of God, no more than we can prove His existence.

[QUOTE="blooddemon666"]I actually did get laughed at... well not laughed at, but she declined by saying something along the lines of "No, I don't date ugly guys" in front of my entire class.X360PS3AMD05

but its so hard to get over that initial fear :cry:MichaeltheCM

The cloak of protection +2 should suffice.