Alternative religions. Anyone follow one?

Everyone is so nice I am thinking we need to break out Kumbaya.

Maybe, except the lyrics are "Kumbaya, my Lord, Kumbaya..." LOL So it is not likely a song that fits with many of the contributors to this thread.

There is no God. Humanity is stupid.

My silly question to the atheist community is if you don't believe in gods or godesses doe this mean you also don't believe in the concept of extraterrestrials(sp?) influenzing the development of early humans and taken as gods ? Does it also then follow do you believe human beings are the highest form of sentient beings in the universe - just asking to know

I kind of have the opposite question, if you believe in a God do you believe in Aliens???

I raised the question as there has been much written on the subject like "Chariots of the God"s that attempt to redefine and rationalize God as a being within this universe that is in actuality an Alien. Hence God is not in a "spiritual" world outside of this universe, but living in this universe and we as early humans with no other ways of explaining their nature, noted them as Gods or God.

or well... one can believe God created the universe as well as Aliens. There are priests who study science. Although there priests who believe in aliens, not a lot of Christians do, but I think they would believe God created them too.

I just think things like this are weird:
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/esp_geographic_geometry_1.htm

All of the languages were different, they did not have phones or a mail carrier yet all over the world megalithic structures were built in the same manner with no communication. So possibly if God created the universe one of God's beings "an alien" could have given us the knowledge?

Freebird, you are awesome !!! I like the way you think ....

generally my beliefs are Daoist. Mostly because of the attempts to make sense of the universe.

I have a real issue with people who put their faith in another 'being' (for want of a better word) as if that absolves them of responsibility for their actions.

I'm not quite sure how putting your faith in another being or a higher power absolves you of responsibility for your actions. I'm a Christian and I've almost always taken responsibility for my own actions. I don't quite see where that idea comes from. No major faith system that I know of (and I have many friends from very different religious backgrounds) says that belief in a higher power absolves you of personal responsibility.

Cold hearted atheist here. Go flying spaghetti monster go!

No I don't eat little babies and sacrifice kittens to science.

Same here!

My silly question to the atheist community is if you don't believe in gods or godesses doe this mean you also don't believe in the concept of extraterrestrials(sp?) influenzing the development of early humans and taken as gods ? Does it also then follow do you believe human beings are the highest form of sentient beings in the universe - just asking to know

I kind of have the opposite question, if you believe in a God do you believe in Aliens???

I raised the question as there has been much written on the subject like "Chariots of the God"s that attempt to redefine and rationalize God as a being within this universe that is in actuality an Alien. Hence God is not in a "spiritual" world outside of this universe, but living in this universe and we as early humans with no other ways of explaining their nature, noted them as Gods or God.

or well... one can believe God created the universe as well as Aliens. There are priests who study science. Although there priests who believe in aliens, not a lot of Christians do, but I think they would believe God created them too.

I just think things like this are weird:
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/esp_geographic_geometry_1.htm

All of the languages were different, they did not have phones or a mail carrier yet all over the world megalithic structures were built in the same manner with no communication. So possibly if God created the universe one of God's beings "an alien" could have given us the knowledge?

Freebird, you are awesome !!! I like the way you think ....

Thank-you. I have just watched a lot. "Everything You Know is Wrong" by Loyd Pye does give great info about our bodies. And there was a great doc about how you can draw a line through every pyramid made. Also one kicker is all religions have a loud noise coming down, a descriptive text of a flying machine, a burning bush or fire, there are very similar descriptive text even though the languages were different and there was no way they could walk that far to talk.

I am on the fence about God, this is something we will never know who created the universe or what's outside of the universe.

But I just find a few things get to me. Like how some people think because they read the bible they can say "God will only give me what I can handle" or umm "it's God's path for us" or some people deal with a hard situation by "well we don't know what God has in store for us" these people insult every victim of rape, incest, starvation, abuse, etc. Why would someone say those above statements, it just baffles me and is soooo insulting.

I also NEVER say my views, but someone will say "I'll pray for ya" instead of good luck on that test. I try to ignore it but I heard someone say oh no an Atheist, but really I find us more shy to say what we think because we are always attacked but someone who has a religion/ has a free pass to say what they want. I hope this is not coming off as rude. DO NOT MEAN TO BE RUDE. But there should be no way no how that I know you go to church or have a religion because I should have never heard a sentence that would lead me to think that. But that's not the way it is, you always let us know for some reason?

And also just to note: Life outside our planet can be a single cell organism. So if we find bacteria outside our planet it will be alien. So you don't have to assume we will never find walking aliens, but life outside this planet is 99.9% likely

Here are my results. Kind of surprising that I am 100% Buddhist!

1. Mahayana Buddhism (100%)
2. Unitarian Universalism (98%)
3. Jainism (94%)
4. Hinduism (90%)
5. Liberal Quakers - Religious Society of Friends (88%)
6. Theravada Buddhism (88%)
7. Sikhism (87%)
8. Taoism (86%)
9. Scientology (79%)
10. New Thought (78%)

NO........................................... THERES 1 GOD
CHRISTIANITY ..........................

I'm actually shocked that it took 10 pages for a reply like this.

Everyone has spoken so well about their beliefs and here you come with a one line, capslocked "there is only one way of life" response. Or, at least it's how it's reading from this end. Kudos to you for being happy and satisfied in your religious choices.

I saw it and was going to say something but refrained as 1) it is their own opinion, even if they shouldn't have basically 'yelled' it at everyone here and 2) i didn't want to risk starting anything. It did fester on my mind however, why would you bother coming into a thread like this, where everything is nice and no one was saying anything negative about your personal beliefs and put that in all caps. It's not the place, nor the time.

Everyone *is* entitled to their opinion; my issue wasn't with the opinion but with the delivery. No one has the right to bring down other's opinion in the spirit of stating their own. PLENTY of people came in here with the same opinions but stated them respectfully. I wasn't even really all that bothered by it, let alone took it personally (really, now.) more shocked by the contrast of it. I was one of the early commenters and really have enjoyed watching the civil discourse in this thread.

If you think I was attacking her opinion, I apologize.

Oh no you misunderstood ME I wasn't intending to say that you were staring anything, I was just stating why I hadn't mentioned anything and in a long winded way agreeing with you, in a not so great manner clearly. I apologize for that. You're right on all stand points, it should have been done in a more civilized way.

There is no God. Humanity is stupid.

This is just as bad as the person coming in here and pushing God on everyone in here. That's your personal opinion and fine but to call all humanity stupid? That's just plain out rude. You should really try being a little more polite as people are here for polite conversation and have been doing just fine with it

My results from http://SelectSmart.com/religion: Spiritual Belief System Selector Rankings:

1. Unitarian Universalism (100 %)
2. Liberal Quakers - Religious Society of Friends (93 %)
3. Mainline - Liberal Christian Protestants (86 %)
4. Reform Judaism (79 %)
.
.
..
.
27. Roman Catholic (18 %)

This is interesting... I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic schools entirely from kindergarten through college.
Most of the teachings never made sense and I spent many hours in detentions for "questioning" everything -- or getting my knuckles smacked with a ruler, or kneeling on a pencil.

Will definitely have to do a little UU research. I found quite a listing for these congegations around the city.. maybe I'll finally fit in somewhere

My silly question to the atheist community is if you don't believe in gods or godesses doe this mean you also don't believe in the concept of extraterrestrials(sp?) influenzing the development of early humans and taken as gods ? Does it also then follow do you believe human beings are the highest form of sentient beings in the universe - just asking to know

I kind of have the opposite question, if you believe in a God do you believe in Aliens???

I raised the question as there has been much written on the subject like "Chariots of the God"s that attempt to redefine and rationalize God as a being within this universe that is in actuality an Alien. Hence God is not in a "spiritual" world outside of this universe, but living in this universe and we as early humans with no other ways of explaining their nature, noted them as Gods or God. These interventions over time became embelissed and evovled into the modern day religions we have today. Whether I support this is something else, but attempts to rationalize why so many early and separated societies had a common theme that gods or Gods came from the sky or stars.

I am an atheist because I have not been convinced that a god or gods exist. That in and of itself does not mean that I don't believe in extraterrestrials.

If the question was put to me simply "Do you believe that there is life on another planet?"

I would say:

"I am not aware of any evidence of life on another planet but due to the immense size of the universe and the number of planets that there are it is entirely possible that life may have developed on another planet. That said I doubt very much that aliens have ever flown here."

Maybe one day we will discover life on another planet and it may even be sentient but I would be shocked if I learned one day that aliens had anything to do with life on this planet.

Hi Soldier, I always like it when you're on a topic !!. Time for me to come clean. I'm sort of on the opposite side...show me proof that God does not exist. I think maybe the jury is out...science has a long way to go, and in a prior post I was on my soap box about the dynamics of science. Science to me has not proven the non-existence. As science goes on we continue to re-evaluate prior conclusions. Aka the first law of thermodynamics...matter canot be created or destroyed...but yet here we are. The second regarding entropy puts holes into evolution. The big bang ? What came before it ? As we progress and open a layer several other countless layers of complexity appear. And with that more and more questions. To me, science does not have the answer, so I tend to prefer the other explanation of a greater mind that helped put it together.Perhaps both explantions are invalid, but to me it's the best I can go with. Take Care !!!!

Hello Fox I enjoy our talks as well.

The burden of proof for the existence of something falls upon the person making the positive claim. I am not saying that your god does not exist. I am saying that I am not convinced that he does and I am not capable of believing that god actually exists in reality until after I have been exposed to the required evidence.

Burden of proof is very important because being aware of it can prevent us from approaching a topic from the wrong direction. If I were to claim that I rode a unicorn to work and one of my co-workers said "I don't believe you." it would not be appropriate for me to reply with "Prove that I don't have a unicorn." I am claiming that I have a unicorn so the burden of proof falls upon me to support that claim and my coworker would be rationally justified in not believing me until after I showed him the unicorn.

The same thing would be true if I said I drove my car. The only difference is I would actually be able to take him to my car and show it too him. Also the amount of proof required for me to prove that claim would be lower because it is a smaller claim. If I took him to a horse with a horn on its head he would be justified in asking to make sure I didn't just attach a horn to a horse. The reason for this is my coworker would not have to accept the existence of an entirely new species to believe me about my car. Lots of people drive cars and I can show him my car so the claim has more credibility.

The time to believe in a thing is after the evidence has been found and not before. If you have the evidence for the existence of god then you are justified in believing god is real but unless you are able to manifest that evidence for me I cannot join you in that belief. I could say that I believe in god to win the acceptance of believers but it would simply be a farce. I would just be saying it and not actually believing it.

As an atheist I have no choice but to accept this reality of my life. If there is in fact a god and it is the christian god and not believing in him is ground for eternal torture then I have to accept that is going to be my fate unless the actual evidence for his existence were to show up before my death. The reason for this is because while I could claim to believe in god to win the acceptance of believers the god as described in the christian bible would be able to see through all of that. He would know that I am was not actually convinced in his existence and my fate would be no different I would still be sent to hell.

Science really doesn't try to prove the non-existence of anything. It just tries to find out what is there. So science will never prove the non-existence of god because it is never trying to. We are simply looking for god and not finding him.

Matter cannot be created or destroyed but it can change form so it isn't a problem that we are here.

The second law of thermodynamics does not cause any problems for evolution at all because the planet earth is not a closed system. The earth receives outside energy from the sun.

The big bang is simply the idea of the expansion of a singularity and all the evidence that we have had access to so far basically brings us to that point. Not knowing what happened before it does not create an opening where you can simply insert your favorite god in to it.

Science is basically the best tool we have to decipher our world with but it is a growing thing. New information is discovered and some of it confirms what we already knew and some of it will force us to redefine things that we thought were true. It is like a blade that is constantly being sharpened. That fact that we don't know everything does not lend any credibility to the idea of a god.

I realize this is very long but you did give me a lot to go over and I didn't even go in to great depth on most of it to try and keep this readable. Still given as long and it is most people will not read this anyways so I hope that at least you do.

Take care and have a great day.

My silly question to the atheist community is if you don't believe in gods or godesses doe this mean you also don't believe in the concept of extraterrestrials(sp?) influenzing the development of early humans and taken as gods ? Does it also then follow do you believe human beings are the highest form of sentient beings in the universe - just asking to know

I kind of have the opposite question, if you believe in a God do you believe in Aliens???

I raised the question as there has been much written on the subject like "Chariots of the God"s that attempt to redefine and rationalize God as a being within this universe that is in actuality an Alien. Hence God is not in a "spiritual" world outside of this universe, but living in this universe and we as early humans with no other ways of explaining their nature, noted them as Gods or God. These interventions over time became embelissed and evovled into the modern day religions we have today. Whether I support this is something else, but attempts to rationalize why so many early and separated societies had a common theme that gods or Gods came from the sky or stars.

I am an atheist because I have not been convinced that a god or gods exist. That in and of itself does not mean that I don't believe in extraterrestrials.

If the question was put to me simply "Do you believe that there is life on another planet?"

I would say:

"I am not aware of any evidence of life on another planet but due to the immense size of the universe and the number of planets that there are it is entirely possible that life may have developed on another planet. That said I doubt very much that aliens have ever flown here."

Maybe one day we will discover life on another planet and it may even be sentient but I would be shocked if I learned one day that aliens had anything to do with life on this planet.

Hi Soldier, I always like it when you're on a topic !!. Time for me to come clean. I'm sort of on the opposite side...show me proof that God does not exist. I think maybe the jury is out...science has a long way to go, and in a prior post I was on my soap box about the dynamics of science. Science to me has not proven the non-existence. As science goes on we continue to re-evaluate prior conclusions. Aka the first law of thermodynamics...matter canot be created or destroyed...but yet here we are. The second regarding entropy puts holes into evolution. The big bang ? What came before it ? As we progress and open a layer several other countless layers of complexity appear. And with that more and more questions. To me, science does not have the answer, so I tend to prefer the other explanation of a greater mind that helped put it together.Perhaps both explantions are invalid, but to me it's the best I can go with. Take Care !!!!

If your critique of science is that it doesn't have answers, you don't understand science to begin with. Science, by definition, can't do that.

Well thankyou. I'm an engineer who has spent his career in the sciences of physics, chemistry, water resources etc. I'm relating to soldier my opinion, based on my experience with science and education. If you think I don't know science and how it is influenced, well that's your opinion. Take care !!!

You cannot prove a negative though.

Prove to me that your water sample has no contaminating mercury. You can't. The best you could do is say it is below the level of detection for whatever test you used. So, based on that evidence, it is safe to drink.

I'm the same with a god. There is no positive evidence that one exists, but the possibility cannot be ruled out completely. I think it HIGHLY improbable, of course, but it never does to shut ones minds totally.


By the way:

Matter can be created on the quantum level. It has been observed.

The entropy of the system refers to the complete system (i.e. the planet in this case). Organization can occur on a smaller scale (i.e. crystals, life).

And what came before the big bang? In science (as you should apparently know) when we don't know the answer, we say "I don't know". Making up entities to explain unknowns defies Ockham's razor.

I live in Canada, so although I do not believe in any First Nations beliefs they are beautiful and I smudge my house just for good measure LOL

But here is one Native story passed around that is a great one:


An Old Cherokee Tale of Two Wolves

One evening an old Cherokee Indian told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, ‘My son, the battle is between two ‘wolves’ inside us all.

One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.’

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: ‘Which wolf wins?’

The old Cherokee simply replied, ‘The one you feed.’

This is such a lovely story: so simple and yet so true. I think each and every one of us has these two wolves running around inside us. The Evil wolf or the Good Wolf is fed daily by the choices we make with our thoughts. What you think about and dwell upon will in a sense appear in your life and influence your behavior.

We have a choice, feed the Good Wolf and it will show up in our character, habits and behavior positively. Or feed the Evil Wolf and our whole world will turn negative: like poison, this will slowly eat away at our soul.

The crucial question is “Which are you feeding today”?

Nice! I like it.

Hey soldier just got done my workout and noted your comments. You should really put thoughts to pen or keyboard. As you may note, I thirst for information and love the subject matter. Have a great one !!

Or perhaps we are a simulation designed by our future selves. Like the Sims Game, just on a more magnificent level.

You're traveling through another dimension -- a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's a signpost up ahead: your next stop: the Twilight Zone!

Would you consider this our conscience?

Sure, you could definitely use that term. But based not on what our belief system tells us is right, but by an innate sense of morality.

What would you consider to be the parameters of our innate morality? Human sacrifice, child brides and incest have all been considered natural and good at times throughout human history.

I think that many people go against their conscience (or innate morality) since sin (dare I use this word?) is appealing by human nature.

Well if by sin you mean any reprehensible or regrettable act then I would agree that it at least exists. If by sin you mean a transgression against a divine law then I would say the word is meaningless because I don't think that there is an actual divine law to transgress against.

While some actions that could be defined as reprehensible could be appealing to people. Take gluttony for example I do not think it would be accurate to say that "sin" is in general appealing to the nature of humans.

Torture for example is such a horrible thing in my mind that it makes me ill to even see it. I despise slavery and in general I do not find any action that has a victim to be "appealing." If "sin" was appealing to human nature then how is it that I do not find these sins appealing?

These are really quite interesting questions. I think that sometime our sinful nature over-rides our conscience, and sometimes our conscience wins out. If this were not the case and sinful nature ruled, then there would be no good in the world. Yet, I do think that everyone does have a sinful nature that sometimes does win out. Selfishness and etc. are very common sins.

Since we have established that people are somethings good and sometimes bad why then would we assume that it is our nature to be sinful? It would be the exact same result if we were good by nature and we occasionally transgressed. Essentially our world would look no different. For that matter our world would also seem identical to how it is now if we were all basically blank slates and we became X parts good and Y parts bad based on our life experiences.

We can reasonable conclude is that we are not pure evil or pure good but there isn't any logically justifiable reason to conclude that our nature is one way or the other based on the evidence that has been presented so far.

Sorry I haven't been able to respond to this sooner, I just haven't had time. The Bible teaches that everyone needs to believe in Jesus to be saved. Do you really think that if everyone felt like they were good by nature and just occasionally transgressed, that anyone would feel the need to accept Jesus as their savior? Plus, I don't think that we just "occasionally" transgress. At least I know that I sin frequently, like multiple times a day. It's not like I'm a notorious person, but I am commonly proud, selfish, and I don't always like to follow God's commands. I am working on these faults though. The bible teaches that we all fall short from the glory of God, and that our good works are like dirty rags compared to his perfection. This is the main reason why we need Jesus as our savior. (I hope I was able to answer the question!)