What's Your Interpretion Of God Al Mighty?

Raised as a Catholic, went to Catholic school for 10 years and to church on Sundays. Since, (12 years later), I've grown to out-grow it in a way and frankly am very irritated with what all religion, especially Christianity has become. Modern Christianity today is nothing more than a t-shirt, a bumper sticker or Jesus fish on the back of a car. A justification for murder, or a good reason to say I'm better than you because....... It's disgusting really. While I still and likely always will believe in God, it's more of a personal spirituality. I don't care to give a deity a name or trait, sex or race. I think that one thing that most modern societies and sciences have failed to realize is that faith - not necessarily religion - has always been the one true constant in the course of our history as a society of people. Whether it be ancient Egyptians, Romans, Muslims or whatever, faith in something greater than what we know and are has always been there. It has to be, as humans we need to believe that there is someone who can has some sort of control of our lives when we do not, to be a supreme judge of all men so that we may justify our life choices and condemn those of others. That this life isn't all there is and all of our pain and suffereing along the journey shall be rewarded at the end.
But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

I'm not sure exactly what you're sayingJP, are you saying that to a certain extent you will be judged by the man upstairs based on your conscience, or just pointing out the fact i was hiding, what my conscience tells me is a minor crime, behind legal terms? :huh:
I was just pointing out that Billy's thinking that god would agree with the western legal system was an assumption, perhaps god has a very different take on file sharing, perhaps he disagrees with the whole idea of information/data being worth something.

As an agnostic and strongly suspecting that there is no god, I couldn't give a monkeys really, I'm far more worried about getting kicked off the uni network for using too much bandwidth :ph34r:

Edit: typo

Learned this in Humanities class...

Gods were created based on, of all things, the weather of the region. If the weather was good, the god of the people was an optimistic god, like the gods of Egypt. The Nile regularly flooded and gave people good farmland, and the weather was generally calm. The Egyptian gods were nice gods, and no one was sent to "hell" or anything.

Egypt is by the equator, so its seasons were mild compared to the Mesopotamian seasons.

The hebrew god is a pessimistic god. The hebrews came from mesopotamia, where there was a giant flood that wiped out whole cities (Noah's ark) and weather was unpredictable and wild. Therefore the Jews imagined that their god was pessimistic and must be obeyed or else terrible things will happen!!

When the Egyptians did their worship, good things continued to happen, but when mesopotamians worshipped their gods, most of the time good things happened but sometimes terrible things happened, because of the harsher seasons. That's how religions were created :)

If you look at the Jewish god, he's always punishing people for doing the damndest of things. Look at the story of Job. He got all his things taken away from him, including his family, because satan challenged God to do it. Job was a good, faithful man who got screwed by God because he was a human being and all human beings have some sin in them.

Also, god says that if someone screws up, their children up to 4 generations will suffer. What kind of an asshole god punishes the CHILDREN of the person who sinned? If my great great grandfather killed someone, I get to be punished.

This is indicative of the fact that the hebrew god is a pessimistic god... (scroll up)

edit: religion is a crock of shit, but God, if there is a god, is good.

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Originally posted by ilw@27 September 2003 - 23:41
I'm not sure exactly what you're sayingJP, are you saying that to a certain extent you will be judged by the man upstairs based on your conscience, or just pointing out the fact i was hiding, what my conscience tells me is a minor crime, behind legal terms? :huh: 
I was just pointing out that Billy's thinking that god would agree with the western legal system was an assumption, perhaps god has a very different take on file sharing, perhaps he disagrees with the whole idea of information/data being worth something.

As an agnostic and strongly suspecting that there is no god, I couldn't give a monkeys really, I'm far more worried about getting kicked off the uni network for using too much bandwidth :ph34r:

Edit: typo

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If you took my post in any way as a pop at you my apologies, it was not my intention.

What I am saying is that to a large extent one is judged by God (accepting your agnosticism) on the basis of your conscience. If you genuinely believe after having examined your conscience that file sharing is not stealing, then it is not. If however you believe that it is wrong and continue to do it, then you are stealing.

I merely mentioned the law thing to ensure that I was not giving the impression that the law viewed things in the same way. In order to commit a lot of crimes you must have mens rea (see above) however that is not a personal, ethical judgment. It is simply knowing that your actions are against the law, whether you believe it is a just law or not.

So it is perfectly possible to break the law (copyright violation for example) without that being ethically wrong.

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Originally posted by SodiumChloride@27 September 2003 - 23:57

edit: religion is a crock of shit, but God, if there is a god, is good.

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On what do you base this observation? Life is hard even for those who are successful. Why would a "good" God create such misery for the majority?

Even if you feel like bailing out and saying that we bring misery upon ourselves, what evidence is there that he is good. I would say that God created this Earth and humans to watch us like some pathetic Soap Opera. After all, what else does he has to do?

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Originally posted by hobbes@27 September 2003 - 16:18
I would say that God created this Earth and humans to watch us like some pathetic Soap Opera. After all, what else does he has to do?

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If god lives forever, that must be pretty boring, so he has to do something to keep entertained :D

What i meant by saying religion is bad is that the people who believe in something with enough vigor tend to look down upon those who do not believe. Fundimentalists especially distrust other religions, and they respond with violence.

If god created everything, shouldn't it be okay for people to just worship whatever they choose? Like the sun? George Carlin does that, and he's a funny guy B)

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Originally posted by SodiumChloride+28 September 2003 - 00:29--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (SodiumChloride @ 28 September 2003 - 00:29)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-hobbes@27 September 2003 - 16:18
I would say that God created this Earth and humans to watch us like some pathetic Soap Opera.&nbsp; After all, what else does he has to do?

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If god lives forever, that must be pretty boring, so he has to do something to keep entertained :D

What i meant by saying religion is bad is that the people who believe in something with enough vigor tend to look down upon those who do not believe. Fundimentalists especially distrust other religions, and they respond with violence.

If god created everything, shouldn&#39;t it be okay for people to just worship whatever they choose? Like the sun? George Carlin does that, and he&#39;s a funny guy B) [/b][/quote]
Theology from a chemistry student, that&#39;s all we need.

File sharing is wrong, no matter how you justify it.

If I spend 300 million to create a movie, people should not be allowed to transfer a single copy freely amongst each other and leave me without recompensation.

If I am an independent adventure game company who releases a terrific game, why should people be able to play it for free as I file for bankrupcy?

What we are doing is morally and legally wrong, let us drop the pretense. Lie to yourselves if you can, but I cannot.

I find the convenience and variety of files available to be too good to pass up. P2P or any sort of internet distribution is the inevitable future and companies should learn to work with it rather than disrupt it.

Just like Blockbuster is allowed to rent any movie from any studio, similar franchises should be allowed online so that we can continue with the convenience and also reward those who have made the effort to create something enjoyable.

I will gladly switch over to a legit pay service, but at the moment this entity does not exist, and I continue to live in sin.

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Originally posted by hobbes+28 September 2003 - 00:18--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (hobbes &#064; 28 September 2003 - 00:18)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteBegin-SodiumChloride@27 September 2003 - 23:57

but God, if there is a god, is good.

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On what do you base this observation? Life is hard even for those who are successful. Why would a "good" God create such misery for the majority?

Even if you feel like bailing out and saying that we bring misery upon ourselves, what evidence is there that he is good. I would say that God created this Earth and humans to watch us like some pathetic Soap Opera. After all, what else does he has to do?[/b][/quote]
Sorry NaCl,

Let me refine your quote some more.

What evidence is there that he is "good"? Just as likely, he is an indifferent creator.