drawing heaven

[El Barto]

Athiests are the worse offenders for shoving their religion down other peoples throats. They claim logic, evidence, etc. but in reality they are not much better then the 14th centery crusaders who could not tolerate that some other people had different views on the subject than themselves.

You never met a jehovah's wittness have you?

[El Barto]

I have to dissagree with both sides of the issue here.
No one can prove there's a heaven like no one can prove there's nothing after we die.
There has been too many cases of past lives. Odd that skeptics that ask for proof will wave it off if nonsense.... Only proves the skeptics just want to be right and nothing more.

Now for heaven , hell God and Demons......I can't buy any of that.
These are all tools for fear..... do good and you will be rewarded , don't you will be damned ...For the little bit of sin you will be damn for eternity.....sorry , there's a lack of ballance there.
Yet the fear of burning in hell has such a narrow path to travel to heaven that it is hell in it's self .

No , the whole setup here hurts people in the deepest ways that they are not aware of it themselves.

Is there something on the otherside when we die? I would like to think so, but reality is , it is only a feeling, and a feeling is not proof.

I do not see being and doing good as moral integrity when it is motivated by fear of punishment , or some kind of greed of a reward for it.

Many many good acts and thoughts go on unrewarded, just the fact it feels good to have done it should be reward in it's self.

Just to add , religious minded that think they are they only ones to have any moral ......self centered rightiousness ...is just blindness in disguise.

[Arioch]

There has been too many cases of past lives. Odd that skeptics that ask for proof will wave it off if nonsense.... Only proves the skeptics just want to be right and nothing more.

Well, I'd disagree. I've never heard of a case of someone having a 'past life' that panned out. To my knowledge, no one claiming such has actually possessed any more knowledge of the time and people from when they claimed to have lived than a brief perusal of relevant information would provide. I've even watched something where a woman who claimed that she was a friend of Josephine's in a past life (wife of Napolean) underwent past life regression. Oddly enough, she didn't know french and got a lot of details wrong.

I think it's less a case of the skeptics wanting to be right and more that there isn't sufficient evidence. Until someone claiming a past life can provide information that they could not possibly know otherwise (say, someone who was a Russian or German soldier in their past life who was able to tell us what actually happened to the Amber Room) I doubt it will ever be taken as anything other than creative people with over-active imaginations.


Of course, i may be a bit biased (and truth be told, who isn't?) when it comes to the subject. I know someone who claims that in a past life she was a vampire, and before that Moses' egyptian mother, and before that she was Death (as in Four Horsemen 'Death'). She also claims to have been 'granted' the ability to see who or what other people were in their past lives and has declared that a friend of ours was Loki.

I'm still trying to understand how exactly one can have a vampire, an anthropomorphic personification, and a god as past lives...

[El Barto]

There were cases where young children spoke of things and of people that only someone that 'was there' could know. But like always fraud cases and flimsy hypnoses has it's draw backs in proving it.

But my sig says it all for me.

[Freethinker]

Hate to break it to you, but atheism isn't a religion any more than not playing football is a sport.

Excellent point.

The people spewing the **atheism is a religion too! ** mantra are simply searching desperately for some way to defend their own irrational beliefs.

Many atheists, myself included, give God/whatever-higher-power-you-prefer the same chance that science gets: provide evidence.

I too am of that persuasion with regards to religious claims; just provide some evidence or proof for your claims.

So far, in hundreds of years of scientific investigation and research, there has not yet been provided a single shred of empirical, observable, repeatable, falsifiable proof for the miraculous/supernaturalist claims of religionists (such as Christians). No dead people climbing out of their graves and walking around, no walking on water, no one living in a fish for three days, no miraculous transformation of 2 loaves of bread into a hundred, no one able to stop the earth from spinning on its axis for three hours, no humans being instantaneously transformed into a column of sodium chloride, no talking donkeys..............Nothing.

The James Randi organization has for many years been offering one million dollars for anyone on this planet who can demonstrate ANY sort of supernatural ability or knowledge. ANYTHING.

Though there have been countless applicants, not one has been able to demonstrate such ability or knowledge.

[karrie]

Hate to break it to you, but atheism isn't a religion any more than not playing football is a sport.

Hate to break it to you, but, its parallel, deism, is not a religion either. But, like atheism, it holds within it sects of people who share a common book, a common guiding principle, share iconography and symbols, share a mission. People who attempt to convert others, who hold meetings, fundraise for that purpose, etc. Deism is not a religion, but some of the people who hold it as a truth are religious, as are some atheists. :)

If you need a full visual of the similarities, Google 'The Brights'.

[triedit]

Don't even get me started on James Randi. What an ass. I personally know several people who have attempted to be tested for the "prize" and submit thier evidence but he would not even meet with them. The whole thing's a hoax.

[Freethinker]

Hate to break it to you, but, its parallel, deism, is not a religion either. But, like atheism, it holds within it sects of people who share a common book, a common guiding principle, share iconography and symbols, share a mission.

Hate to break it to you karrie, but atheism does not 'hold within it sects of people who share a common book' nor a shared iconography or symbol.

Suggesting that atheism *holds within it sects of people* is akin to suggesting that if you were to take as a set all of the *people who do not play football* that that set of people has within it leagues of people who do not play football.

Atheism (for the umpteenth time) is not comprised of people who hold to a certain rigid set of beliefs, but is instead a way of looking at the world held by people who DO NOT hold to a certain rigid set of beliefs.

[triedit]

Hate to break it to you karrie, but atheism does not 'hold within it sects of people who share a common book' nor a shared iconography or symbol.

Suggesting that atheism *holds within it sects of people* is akin to suggesting that if you were to take as a set all of the *people who do not play football* that that set of people has within it leagues of people who do not play football.

Atheism (for the umpteenth time) is not comprised of people who hold to a certain rigid set of beliefs, but is instead a way of looking at the world held by people who DO NOT hold to a certain rigid set of beliefs.

Using your football analogy, The set of people who do not play football holds within it a set of people who WILL NOT play football.

Atheism holds within it a set of people who WILL NOT believe. I think that qualifies as a rigid set of beliefs.

[karrie]

Hate to break it to you karrie, but atheism does not 'hold within it sects of people who share a common book' nor a shared iconography or symbol.

Suggesting that atheism *holds within it sects of people* is akin to suggesting that if you were to take as a set all of the *people who do not play football* that that set of people has within it leagues of people who do not play football.

Atheism (for the umpteenth time) is not comprised of people who hold to a certain rigid set of beliefs, but is instead a way of looking at the world held by people who DO NOT hold to a certain rigid set of beliefs.

Google 'The Brights'.

Oh, and... http://antifootballleague.org/