The three major religions have their roots 4000, 2000 and 1400 years ago, before science had any level of understanding of the vast enormity of the universe. 4000 - 1400 years ago, it was common to believe that the earth was the centre of the universe and the sun revolved around the earth. It was easy to believe that we were the only life forms in the universe and therefore that god was watching us all, and monitoring all our prayers. However, most of our current understanding regarding the shear size of the Universe as come about over the last few decades..... The universe is massive! It contains more than 170 billion galaxies (in the observable universe). Dwarf galaxies (small ones) contain as few as ten million stars. Giant galaxies (massive ones) contain a hundred trillion stars. The universe is MASSIVE! The universe is also really really old (13.8 billion years), so old in fact that the 4000 years mentioned earlier is an inconsequential time period. If the theistic philosphers of the day, when each of these religions were in infancy, had our current knowledge regarding the amount of planets in the universe. They would no doubt have had second thoughts about creation theory and effective prayer to god. In fact the entire notion of there being an entity paying any attention to individual organisms (human only), on planet earth, would have been difficult to conceive and even harder to sell to the masses as a whole. Without this knowledge however, and on the back of other religions such as paganism, the sell to the public would have been much much easier.
The people knew not that a universe was existing and they did not know that they are living on a planet. They saw the sun moving and this moving made day and night. They attibuated for example the moon to the night - although everyone knew that the moon is also shining in the day. They used this polarity like we are using for example the polarity "0" and "1" or "good" and "evil" or other dualisms. Specially: We know exactly that the earth is a globe since about 500 years B.C. (since 2500 years) because Parmenides made clear that we see always the sail first, if a ship comes. The myth Catholics believed in a flat planet earth is nonsense. This prejudice comes from Washingtons Irving myths about Christopher Columbus and are prejudices from the 19th century. Did you ever read something what was written in Europe, China or India? Let me say it this way: I'm convinced - without being able to say to you why - that something what god's not watching any longer will just simple dissapear. More than this: It was never existing, it is not existing and it will never exist. We are not even able to think about what it could had been what god did not watch any longer. Maybe I'm wrong - I don't know - nevertheless it is not wrong to pray in the evening "Lieber Gott ich geh zur Ruh, schließe meine Augen zu. Vater, laß die Augen dein über meinem Bette sein. ..." (="Dear god I will sleep now and I will close my eyes. Let your eyes be over my bed ..." - the german text is much more nice). It's much more comfortable to be watched from god. Theistic? Theists are not existing - we are Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hinduists for example. In the first 300-400 years of the christian religion the people asked: "What did god do before he created the world?" And the smiling christian standard answer was "He created hell to send the people in who are asking such questions " - until Saint Augustinus - unfortunatelly he made also mistakes like his Antijudaism for example - found another very very astonishing answer more than 1500 years ago. He said something like: "We are not able to say anything about, because in the very first moment of the creation the time itselve was created from god. There was no time before - from our point of view god did nothing because there was nothing". So: What do we know in the moment about life in the universe? We know that life is existing - minimum in one case (I am existing and still I'm alive) - and I hope we can agree that all life on planet earth has a common orgin here on our planet earth. Nevertheless: We need energy - not to less not to much - we need water - not to less not to much - we need a moon - not to big and not to small and not to far away - and so on and so on and so on ... Short: It's nearly impossible that we are existing - but we are existhing. And we know from you: The possibillities for the existance of [nearly impossible] life are gigantic high if we think about your gigantic numbers of stars and planets. If we make this problem now abstract then we would need a solution for a very simple formula: L=E*U (I just simple used the letters of life, earth and universe - but all others letters would also work). This say you nothing? Soon it will say something: If E is nearly zero and U is nearly endless - what for heavens sake could be the result of "(nearly impossible) * (nearly endless possibilities)"? No one knows, isn't it? And now my question: Because you don't know something - what no one else also don't know - you like to erase all religions from this planet? Give me please an explanation why you think so. Specially I would like to understand why your belief in atheism and the possible or impossible existance of extraterrestrians says life would be more easy for you and the people who are thinking in your way if the Christians would be erased from his planet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRe16N_UziY
I don't want all religions erased, where did I say that? I would like people to review the basis of their beliefs, based on all of the scientific information now available. Look back at the context of religious texts, when they were written and ask honest questions about it. I don't "believe in atheim"; there is nothing to believe in. That's the point. I have no idea what ET has to do with this subject.
What do you think should l learn from you? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsF3HspQY6A http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dhSdnDb3tk
I have learned from you that posting irrelevant YouTube videos is pointless and a waste of bandwidth.
Look buddy, posting Dylan songs ain´t gonna help. What it seems is that you´re pushing your fingers in your ears and shouting la la la la. Plus I prefer Tomorrow is a Long Time and Hollis Brown.
Why atheists are so interested in what God does? They don't believe in him and yet spend more time thinking of ways to "prove" he doesn't exist that I do praying. Ever thought that was a form of worship?
We aren't. If you see us talking about what god 'does' or 'does not do', it's really just shorthand for 'what some Christians say god does'. I don't, I can guarantee you that. It probably can't be proven, after all. No, because that would be extremely silly.
No. Did you ever consider addressing the OP? What do you think the originators of the bible would have thought, if they knew anything of the size of the currently known universe? Do you think it might have made them slightly less special?
God will know why you, you and you are on this planet. Still I don't have any idea why. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WJUXUXJg-A
I dont think early Christians such as St. Augustine would have been impressed with your reasoning here. Its not as if they didnt know that the universe is rather massive and that did not make them think that God must have rather big ears to hear their prayers. Apparently the questions regularly posed by atheists in this 21th century forum were also already around in the 4th century, heres the answer Augustine arrived at concerning yours. From Confessiones, Book 3, Chapter 7: 12. For I was ignorant of that other reality, true Being. And so it was that I was subtly persuaded to agree with these foolish deceivers when they put their questions to me: "Whence comes evil?" and, "Is God limited by a bodily shape, and has he hairs and nails?" and, "Are those patriarchs to be esteemed righteous who had many wives at one time, and who killed men and who sacrificed living creatures?" In my ignorance I was much disturbed over these things and, though I was retreating from the truth, I appeared to myself to be going toward it, because I did not yet know that evil was nothing but a privation of good (that, indeed, it has no being)[73]; and how should I have seen this when the sight of my eyes went no farther than physical objects, and the sight of my mind reached no farther than to fantasms? And I did not know that God is a spirit who has no parts extended in length and breadth, whose being has no mass -- for every mass is less in a part than in a whole -- and if it be an infinite mass it must be less in such parts as are limited by a certain space than in its infinity. It cannot therefore be wholly everywhere as Spirit is, as God is.." http://www.ourladyswarriors.org/saints/augcon3.htm#chap7
That Augustine was as sharp as a bowling ball. He says that evil has no being then he goes on to claim that God doesn't either. Therefore, evil and God are nothing but imaginary "spirits." The net result is that he rejected everything in the Bible because he used faulty logic to defend his religion. The guy was a heretic of the first magnitude.
Youd make a fine Protestant, Wyrd. While we tend to hold Augustine in high regard, we have no problems disagreeing with our Church fathers instead of slavishly following them in every single point. In fact we just love disagreeing with each other and call each other heretics all the time. So if you want to think of Augustine as a heretic pray do. But do it for good rather than bull(*)(*)(*)(*) reasons: Actually Augustine said God is "supreme being": Heres again from the Confessiones, Book 1, including some more answers for Leffe: 2. And how shall I call upon my God -- my God and my Lord? For when I call on him I ask him to come into me. And what place is there in me into which my God can come? How could God, the God who made both heaven and earth, come into me? Is there anything in me, O Lord my God, that can contain thee? Do even the heaven and the earth, which thou hast made, and in which thou didst make me, contain thee? Is it possible that, since without thee nothing would be which does exist, thou didst make it so that whatever exists has some capacity to receive thee? Why, then, do I ask thee to come into me, since I also am and could not be if thou wert not in me? For I am not, after all, in hell -- and yet thou art there too, for "if I go down into hell, thou art there."[11] Therefore I would not exist -- I would simply not be at all -- unless I exist in thee, from whom and by whom and in whom all things are. Even so, Lord; even so. Where do I call thee to, when I am already in thee? Or from whence wouldst thou come into me? Where, beyond heaven and earth, could I go that there my God might come to me -- he who hath said, "I fill heaven and earth"?[12] CHAPTER III 3. Since, then, thou dost fill the heaven and earth, do they contain thee? Or, dost thou fill and overflow them, because they cannot contain thee? And where dost thou pour out what remains of thee after heaven and earth are full? Or, indeed, is there no need that thou, who dost contain all things, shouldst be contained by any, since those things which thou dost fill thou fillest by containing them? For the vessels which thou dost fill do not confine thee, since even if they were broken, thou wouldst not be poured out. And, when thou art poured out on us, thou art not thereby brought down; rather, we are uplifted. Thou art not scattered; rather, thou dost gather us together. But when thou dost fill all things, dost thou fill them with thy whole being? Or, since not even all things together could contain thee altogether, does any one thing contain a single part, and do all things contain that same part at the same time? Do singulars contain thee singly? Do greater things contain more of thee, and smaller things less? Or, is it not rather that thou art wholly present everywhere, yet in such a way that nothing contains thee wholly? ( .) thou with whom being and life are one, since thou thyself art supreme being and supreme life both together. For thou art infinite and in thee there is no change, nor an end to this present day -- although there is a sense in which it ends in thee since all things are in thee and there would be no such thing as days passing away unless thou didst sustain them. And since "thy years shall have no end,"[20] thy years are an ever-present day. http://www.ourladyswarriors.org/saints/augcon1.htm#chap1
