Myself, I suppose I believe in demons, angels, and a Godhead, but it's not something I dwell upon much. I believe out of body experiences are the basis of the next existence, and that we move on to the astral planes after we die. I fully expect to get flamed, but post your own beliefs while you're at it.

If my beliefs ever become your business, I'll let you know what they are.

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I like it, thanks for sharing.

don't you know when you shut up!?
asking about religion on a metal forum, is asking for more flaming than throwing sharp objects at a menstruating dragon. (and yes, i know you realised that)
i liked the idea where you said you'd go kill yourself.

Oh, because we all like metal here means we're all a bunch of Satan-lovin', virgin-sacrificing', church burnin' hard-asses, right?

...Ha...Ha...Blow me, Trendkill.

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that's true. truer than mayhem. now leave me alone, i'm busy
*gets back to writing P.O.D. tab*

I belive the world is what it is..

We are already in hell, most are just to ignorant to know it.

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I don't worship anything.
I try to be tolerant.... but not when they're intolerant (e.g muslims)
I believe in no god.
I try to love others and accept others
I try to follow my own morals.
I seek self happiness, comfort and acceptance
I try to love
I try to be confident and optimistic
I know I'm wrong
I know I'm right

that's me in a nutshell.

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I'm atheist, but not a hardcore atheist. I still celebrate Christmas and any other holiday, even if it is religious. I don't force my beliefs on others and I'm not out spoken about what I believe in. I don't easily get offended on religious issues less they are strongly against me, just too damn stupid to be correct, or being used to convert me. I am also for separation of church and state.

Now that's me in a nutshell.

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"Ahhh I can't breathe, get me out of here! "

That is me in a nutshell

I believe in true and necro traditions like pubic hair burning every December 5th and sacrificing my pet chinchilla to our Lord Lucifer.

edit: haha on a more serious note, I don't believe in any god, or any "higher power". I'm 100% Atheist, I live my life to be happy, to fulfill my goals in life, and to experience a lot of different things.

If anything, I empathise with paganism - not for the gods and shit like that, but for it's interpretation of the world surrounding it, and how these interpretations allowed to live in a world in harmony with nature.

Hahahah. So are they still singed???? Its been 3 weeks.

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hahahaha! umm no..

I'm an atheist and the only mantra that I live by is to treat other people as I myself would like to be treated. I also believe that organised religion is obscene: if you're going to be religious do it on your own terms, not on those laid down by a child-abusing cock-stroker in a church laden with thousands of pounds worth of gold.

Remember the story of the rich man in the Bible? He gave a lot of money to charity and yet it was still only a small fraction of his wealth. A bloke called Jesus condemned his actions and praised an old, frail woman who gave everything she had to help the needy. The Church could do with re-reading this passage and following it's own teachings. The Pope calls for the cancellation of thrid world debt but is he willing to give up his life of luxury as his contribution? No. Will the Church as a whole give it's entire wealth to the poor and needy? No. Yet more hypocrisy from the Church and it makes me sick.

I best stop before you get me really started...

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Thread of 2004 that I never thought I'd see award goes to: THIS ONE!!!

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Good point about scientists. It could also be said of metalheads congregating in a forum, too. And like the beast that bumped off Dime, don't catagorize everyone of a certain belief into one nutshell. It just ain't gonna work that way. No, nut is big enough anyways.

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Im Catholic and i believe that we are in hell and that when you die you float to the heavens while opeth is playing. personally i think of paganism also but i love black metal too as long as its not too childish but
yeah.....
thats me in a nutshell

Keep this thread clean and it'll stay open. Usually these kinds of threads get really out of control.

I'm agnostic. Thats me in a legume shell.

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What?

I really think there's no one true religion. Nothing is exactly perfect. But I do believe in Jesus and in God. I've felt their presence.

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When I ace a test, or pull something off well and somebody tells me that God must have helped me, I want to punch them.

I did it, I got no help. It's a shame that people so highly praise something they claim created us, when we created him. Praise me, O Lord.

Call me ignorant, call me what you will. It is my religious belief.

i come from a background which has very rigid religious beliefs. even though i dont show any such trait myself, my mom is bent on convincing me that i'll come across "experiences" that are going to make me believe in god.

i dont believe in god the way other people do...i believe god is something created just to have faith in and then put the blame on each time something goes wrong. in that vein, i might as well say music is "god"...

and at the same time, i dont believe in all the anti-god bull either. just say that i'm a non-conformist at religious shit!

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My personal religion is science. That's no joke, it really is. I believe in it with all my figurative heart. Science is so much more reliable than any true religion, because it is based on fact as opposed to pointless conjecture based on ancient, largely inaccurate writings about some mystical being. More importantly, the greatest basis of science is keeping an open mind, which is great, because science is constantly adding new knowledge and changing.

I also find all this 'soul' talk rather amusing. Souls do not exist. Brains, blood, hearts, and lungs all exist. Emotions and intelligence exist. Emotions are a very real entity, immediately recognizable and palpable. Souls, on the other hand, are nothing more than a colorful myth conjured up by human folk.

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Many of you are answering a religous question with a moralistic answer.

I'm Athiestic Agnostic. Basicly that means I don't believe the human mind can possibly know if there is a god or not since god is a supernatural being that transcends out plain of existence. He is a supernatural being (transcendes nature) all we can understand is the natural world.

Read George H. Smith's "Athiesm: The Case Against God" amazing read.

I'm with Chris on the science thing...

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I'm everything DEAD and Chris said. Those are my beliefs.

I was thinking about stuff like that recently though...science and religion.

Don't mind my name though, i was thinking of changing it.

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Well, I believe in santa!!

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who the hell dosent?

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Awesome

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i just typed all his crap and it diddnt work.so im typoing it again with hardly any detail.i believe in god/christ.i believe in heaven and hell.but im not a chrsitian.but if you do listen to opeth while on your way i hope i go to heaven.i guess i dont care about religion.ive never felt a presence or spirituality.my morals/ stadards are my religion.its a great religion.no one really knows im like this eather.i go to church and i haev a god understanding of the bible so in sunday school they think im a good christian cuz i understand alot of stuff.but im completely not.i hate church.some organized religion is bad.but other organizations are just ppl who share the same beliefs and want to be with other ppl that believe the same.but i competly am agains catholisism and the pentacostal church.
as was stated before music is my god.

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I don't have my life philosophy all worked out at 19. I could go through and say what I think now, but that about sums it up. I'll say this much: I like ideas about inner harmony, parallax views, giving (in the Buddhist sense, though I hate to say that since I'm very much not a Buddhist, and also not some new age West Coast hippie signed up for Kabbalah since its the new yoga apparently), and alcohol consumption. I don't believe in any god but still have a lot of love for my fellow man. If I said I had any kind of religious beliefs, they'd be of the of the esoteric, personal variety, and basically focused on some kind of work on the self. What that kind of work is is subject to change. Thanks for your time.

Also, fuck nutshells.

That's a good point you make about scientists but to call it organised religion is a misplaced idea. It is organised yes, but scientists have to congregate at some point in order to receive verification of their ideas. However most scientists prefer to formulate their theories in solitude. Einstein developed his theories on Brownian motion, the photoelectric effect and Special relativity without external input whilst working as a patent's clerk. Newton invented calculus and formed his theory of gravitation (which of course was superceded by Einstein's General Relativity) in the confines of his country home as the plague ravaged England's conurbations of 1666.

While it is necessary for scientists to congregate, there is no physical need to show that you are praying to other people. There is no need to listen to another man lecture (often hypocritically) from a book when you can read it yourself. There is no need even to receive the Host and Communal wine as they are man-made symbolizations and don't come directly from God.

I haven't got a problem with people who hold private religious beliefs - more power to them - but unlike scientific forums, I see no need whatsoever for The Church to exist.

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I would like to call myself agnostic, but in all honesty....I don't know where I stand as far as religion goes.

I endured Private Christian schools from Kindergarten through Eighth grade. There I learned about God and Jesus and ALL about the Bible. While I was there...it (religion) always seemed to feel empty in a way to me. Like I may believe in this...but is it just because I am forced to?? Or does my faith really
run this deep??

After I entered Public school in the 9th grade, I obviously got out of religion...and it looked like what I was told to believe all those young years of my life was bullshit.

I am sure though that at some point I did believe in God and I have prayed to Jesus on more than one occasion....but so much BS has happened to me between my younger years and my realizations of religion...that I have just lost all faith. (To some that would seem like a Cop-out...because we have all seen some shitty stuff.)

Other people have asked me what I do believe in, if I don't believe in any LARGER beings..(or what have you)....and bluntly, I just say Myself.

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Shit, I was talking to my sister the other day and she had the nerve to tell me I was *completly* wrong on the subject of religion, haha. Here is the basic conversation:
Me: "so if I felt like killing a bunch of people very gruesomly, and then recant on my deathbed, I'm 100% assured a free ticket to heaven?"
Her: "yes."
Wow. And this 24 year old mechanical engineer says this....she also believes that science does *nothing* but prove the bible, which is HI-larious.

anyhoo, I'm an anti christian believing in my own morals. That which is to: give in to your carnal desires and worship the seven deadly sins, and to be a nice happy person to everyone. I believe that although this world really sucks right now, I should enjoy being alive with all heart. When I die, I don't know what will happen of course. But I believe that if there is some amuzing heaven I have every right to be there because of my charming personality. Everything can be explained using science and logical sense. If science can truely prove it, I might believe it. And also, I hate the christians-not the individual people, but the group itself.

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I hate how many Christians feel that people of all other religions are going to Hell; that their religion is the only correctness.

Hey, I never said "most". I said "many". I realize that there are many good people out there who are Christians.

Trendkill: Science also fixed itself. It's designed that way. That's what Chris likes about it. If it's full of shit, it's designed to correct itself, at least eventually. So pointing out that it was wrong about something at some point, when it corrected itself, is kinda pointless. Now, if religion - or, really, anything else - had stepped in and said 'Hey science, fuck you! The world isn't flat! Fix that shit!', maybe you'd have a case, but, last I checked, it was other scientists who corrected the assumptions of previous scientists. It's a system designed to be constantly searching and self-correcting, and never to think we've got everything completely figured out. That doesn't mean there aren't scientists who think they do, but even they're forced to give up in the face of evidence to the contrary. In that way, it's designed to compensate for the fact that we're never on top of the ball, which you can't say about most of the other belief systems we're throwing around here.

The said, I could give a shit about it. It doesn't really address what I consider important. But I don't think your argument against it holds that much water.

Anyway, I'm kinda interested to see why you keep trying to peghole yourself as a Christian when your beliefs, as you've outlined them on the occasions you have, really tend to show the ways in which you aren't one. Of course, I think you really enjoy saying you're Christian on a metal board, but there's gotta be more to it than that, right?

And powers: 'give in to your carnal desires and worship the seven deadly sins'? Virgin.

I am a christian and a social centrist and political conservative. I actually started reading the bible and its kinda...err... stupid, it doesnt explain itself at all and it has funny names (Diklah, Garshitsah etc). But hey either beleive and be stupid or dont beleive and burn in the bowels of hell where ricky martin and britney spears play all day. How do we know any of this stuff is true, how do we know if Science isn't just all fake and it just happens to have many paradoxes, maybe a bunch of guys got high and said "OK, OK, OK *holds in laugh* theres gonna be a guy called *holds in laugh* like umm... God and he made like everything yeah yeah and then we can write a book called the Torah then our ancestors can *holds on laugh* write a new part called the bible!!!! it'll be sooo awesome!" How do we know? We dont so im stickin with my old buddy god.

Gotcha TK. Except the last three lines.

Maybe it's the alcohol, but Cheese Co's comment there made about as much sense as a Fantomas record played backward while you're hung over and trying to figure out what number this is that your cell phone's records claim you left a 25 minute message at around 3 in the morning after you filled the rest of a half empty 2 liter of coke with a bottle of whisky and drank it down while watching the director's commentary for The Wall after getting kicked out of the strobe-heavy bar your friends were at for being rowdy and underage. Not that I've ever done that. What was this topic about?

Bahaha. Fantomas rule!

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I was going to reply, but you already explained it for me quite well. Nothing I've ever seen is perfect, but few things I've seen are more flawed than conventional religions. Science is the closest thing to perfect you can find because, as PST kindly explained, any fallacies in science are doomed to be fixed eventually. I'm still waiting for the Noah's Ark fallacy to be fixed, and it's been what, about 4000 years now?

If you've got a better system than science, I'd sure love to hear about it.

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Because, my friend, equations don't lie and all but the most far-fetched hypotheses of Quantum Mechanics have been directly observed and agree with the predictions borne out of theory. Science is testable and yields both qualitative and quantitative results so to even question the veracity of men like Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, Planck and Heisenberg is simply ludicrous.

The best example of science fixing itself is the Quantum leap from Newtonian (or classical) mechanics to Einsteinian mechanics. Newton's theory of gravitation was beautifully elegant and the work of a true genius but it couldn't explain the heliocentric shift of Mercury's orbit (amongst other things). It was almost sacriligious to doubt Newton at the turn of the 20th Century, but one man did - Albert Einstein - and his theory of General Relativity accounted for the shift in Mercury's orbit by incorporating Relativistic effects.

Advanced theories supercede basic theories as we gain the ability to test hypotheses. The Earth was considered flat for a long time because we could not observe anything different. But science corrected itself; science evolved. With the evolution of science, we step nearer to knowing how we came to be here and possess the evidence to back the argument up. Nothing will be left down to blind faith: saying God created us is the same as saying, 'We just are' and there will never be evidence to prove it. Science is proven and I would rather put my faith in hard facts than an entity that we can't even be sure exists outside of the human mind.

I asked this question in a similar thread a long time ago: If a giant asteriod was on a collision course with the Earth, what would you place your faith in to save humanity? God or science?

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A damn good point john... I myself am not that religous so... Deffinatley Science, now maybe its true there is no god... (like i said before) but why not beleive anyway?

Because Pascal's Wager is horribly flawed, and has been getting debunked since any one with a logical mind first heard it.

BTW I'm an atheist.

Well, you can't really prove that I exist outside of your mind, can you?
You can't really argue with ideas about the world being a product of your mind alone. On the other hand, those ideas are quite pointless. I don't like them, I just thought I'd bring them up.

As for myself, I don't like conventional religions, as they to me seem hypocritical and rather un-thought through.
I have never seen any convincing proof of the existence of a higher being that is detectable, so I don't believe in any such thing.

I don't really have any "religious" beliefs in "that" sence, so I'll just give you some kind of related stuff (mainly moralistic shit).

I feel that everyone should be given the greatest possible freedom without denying anyone else their freedom.
I feel that one part of this "freedom" idea is to at all times tell the truth, because not doing so will make others make incorrect choices.
I feel that "mind altering substances" are unneccessary for a "healthy" mind (basically, if you like that "confident" feeling you get when you're drunk, make yourself confident instead of relying on substances to get it).
I feel that life is a challenge, so I'm not gonna give up (I suppose this is in a way a substitute for "god")
Life after death to me seems irrelevant. I can't remember any previous life, so either this is the first life, or you don't remember things. If you don't remember your previous life, why care about its existence?

I think there are a lot of things I'm not mentioning here, because I don't "remember" them right now.

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I don't really like this approach at all. First, it isn't very logical at all..to worship something that you have no way of proving. Second, you'll be living alot of your life in fear of being damned for your actions. Third, alot of your actions will be influenced, and not believed. Fourth, if your just "believing anyways" then your arn't truley believing, and, if their is a God, he'll surely know this.

This leads me to another thought. Are religious people really caring for their fellow man out of the true kindness of their heart or are they just doing it out of fear of what might happen if they don't? I'm sure their are both kinds of people, but its hard to be sure.

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I have Christian beliefs, but not really a denomination. I guess you can still call me one. I also believe that being a "Christian" does not tie you down to laws and ancient beliefs, but actually frees you from wordly chains that others indulge in. I also believe that the earth is plain evidence of a God who had a massive amount of love to put into our creation, detail, and design (just look at our bodies for example, or that if the earth was a tad closer to the sun or farther, it would burn or freeze over). I have noticed some flaws in evolution that also strenghten my views in Christianity, such as this one little object, the bacterium flagellum. This little thing is the tail of the bacteria, and propells them around so they can get where they have to go. The hook here is that this has been discovered to be one of the most efficent motors ever "formed" (or I think, designed). http://www.creationscience.com/onli...terialmotor.jpg http://www.creationscience.com/onli...otordiagram.jpg
Look at these two. Now, there has also been another idea of irreducable complexity. This basically means if a organ/tissue whatever has only lost one part in its make-up, it will not design. This is the case of the bacetrium flagellum. If the flagellum had to evolve over years, it would not have worked correctly. To assemble the tail would also require perfect instructions, or else it would not work. If these instructions "DNA" had also had a flaw in them, we would probably not see these bacterium today....if it was possible somehow. Also, the big bang theory. First, look at the first and second laws of thermodynamics, then the law of entropy. Anyways, back to my religious views. I view myself to be far from perfect and a sinner, just like we all are. I also do not believe that the bible was written by one dude that was pretty damn high, but 40 authors over a period of about 1,500 years, with 20,000 MSS's discovered. Alright, I guess ill post more later or something.

Hey I have some doubts in religion... actually it depends honest i really dont know... Well, I know that i am not really afraid of god or anything and I just find kindness brings a sortof happiness to myself... but the thing that is messed up is you can kill 5000 people and go to reconciliation and then get to go to heaven?

Also i dont know... Its weird because if people die... then what happens? Do they just see black for ever. Or everything is just... not there? Or do they get to go someplace like a firey pit or a cloud? We wont know untill we die so i say just live life with morals and kindness and afterlife or none then we know that we lived a good life.

They cease to exist... then their carcass is buried six feet under to rot away.

Not so hard to understand...

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I worship Baal and I sacrifice children....

Nah, Im actually a quaker, and Quakers only care about peace and all that junk

But what happens when they cease to exist?

Christ I'm glad we agree a lot.

Why do you half-educated clowns bother arguing with John?

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i guess it would be like your sleeping. just with no dreams.
though i dont belive you just "cease to exist" i belive that you get reancarnated(sp) back into your blood line

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People who have died and been brought back say they dont remember it, which makes sense. Your dead so you have no knowledge of nothing. Ever fall asleep for a second or two and wake up real quick but it felt like you were out forever? Like that.

Actually that happened to my grandmother, she felt as if she was floating out of her body and she yelled and the nurse heard her even though she was officially dead. She saw that light that was very bright but someone said "It is not your time" then she went back into her body. How do you explain that?

She saw too many movies about near-death experiences, and the afterlife in general. If you want to say 'well, my grandmother ...', anyone can bring up anything. People do all sorts of bullshit in that 'near-death' time, and it's not uniform or anything - as it should be to at least some degree if it's an actual phenomenon and not a product of each almost dead person's over-active imagination - so, until there's a way to test it with some kind of scientific method, you can't bring it in as evidence.

Why does something have to happen when you cease to exist? Why is that so scary and difficult for people? Nothing has to happen then, except the physical process of decay. That doesn't mean something doesn't happen, but there doesn't have to be a 'what then' except to make it easier for some people with too much self-importance to sleep at night. If you want to take something good out of Christianity, take this much: be concerned about how you act now. Regardless of whether or not you believe in an afterlife, this is the only life in which your actions have any meaning.

What's your complex explanation for ghosts, the supernatural, and OBE's?

John, I agree with you fully, but using The Theory of Realitivity isnt the best way because I tihnk (not 100% sure) that they have discovered that there are some small flaws with his theory. Also there are very few people who understand the thoery to the fullest extent.

Another thing, even if you can not test theory like you can in a lab, for example there is no way to test how particles act at teh speed of light, yet we know that time is not a constant when you reach that speed because of equations as said before.

Religion is the total opposite of science. Science relies on mathamatical work which has already been accepted as fact to prove its points. Asking how we know science is real is the same as asking how we know calculus is real, when you aske these types of questions all discussion becomes pointless. The church totaly opposes science, they put Galileo(i tihnk) to death because he said teh sun was the center of our solar system instead of the earth.

About the whole bright light thing, the same thing happens to people training for space travel in that big machine that tests your resitence to G-force, when they hit their limit, they pass out and report many of the same experiences that near-death experiencers have.

Finally, it is up to the Thiest to provide proof that there is a God, not for the unbeliever to provide proof there is not. For example, if you were to sue someone for a breach of contract, it would be up to you to prove taht there was a contract and that it was violated. It would not be the defentants job to provide initial proof there was no contract. That is the way modern, logical society works, and there is no reason why we should drift away from that when speaking in the ways of Religion. So the whole "Well you can't prove there isnt a God!" argument is insuficient, and just shows a lack of logic on that person's part.

John, how in depth have you stupied The Theory of Realitivity? I'm trying to get a better grasp of it but that whole part about the train traveling at the speed of light and the light reflecting outside and the peron on the train sees it at a certain time different from the person outside the train (i hope you know what I'm talking about) is going over my head.

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Holy shit, its DEAD... Haven't seen you in awhile, but then again I'm not always looking.

I don't believe in god. Do I believe there could be a god? Yes. Do I give enough of a shit about it to make any type of attempt to explore religion? No. I'm fine being an atheist. That way you can have your own thoughts and opinions without having to agree with a religious figurehead and such.

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I think it might be interesting to note that the more articulate and intelligent members of this forum are generally in accord. We can wonder why that is all day long while wringing our hands, furrowing our brows, and rubbing our chins. I mean, I'm stumped. Of course, we do have another option- just laugh at everybody else. I could go either way on this one, so I'll leave it up to you.



My grandmother got shot in the face and had a heart attack, then went into shock. She was legally pronounced dead at the scene. She was buried in 1998. Her body was exhumed in 2001 because of a discrepancy and it was found she was still alive. Her casket was super cheap, so it cracked in some areas after she was buried. God made sure earthworms and groundwater seeped through the casket, and thusly she was nourished with protein and water. Luckily, there was a tunnel nearby supplying her casket with air.

She told us that God brought her back to life on a whim, because for some reason her life is far more important than that of millions of starving, emaciated, and diseased children whose body parts literally rot right off their bodies. I mean, she was Christian, and even though lots of those children are also Children, apparently being a Christian in a wealthy country means you are extremely important to Jesus Cristo. But anyway, back to my fantasticly vague story of miracles bestowed on my Christian American grandmother by God. So, we all went to church and then my grandmother floated to heaven before our very eyes, despite being very much alive. This is the internet, so why not?

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Ah... Thats why I love you Dylan.


Yeah, I've always wondered about that. Maybe people who commit suicide aren't depressed; they are CURIOUS.



Another thing I can't prove, BUT, there is a logical and unlogical answer for the supernatural. Alot of times, people who see ghosts see them in areas that well, to say the least, are creepy themselves. They usually look like something out of a videogame, or a movie. Now, take the atmosphere and add a dash of folklore (ghost stories, and other human made fiction) and you've got yourself someone who's mind'll start playing tricks on them. Adrenaline starts pumping, senses are hightened... And our sense exaggerate every little thing. So lets say you take this situation, add in a household (or whereever) item falling over, and its a "ghost."

Sorry if I rambled.

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i think everyone has heard me and my family's ghost stories and other oddities before. I 'll just say I believe in them because I've experienced some myself.

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ive never heard em

umm... They buried her without putting embalming fluid into her? Wait... Is this the truth or a story? In four years in a little casket she didn't die of blood clots in the legs?

I haven't read down the thread to see if someone replied to you, so if this has been mentioned already sorry.

OBEs(out of body experiences)have been proven to not be what people claim they are. A short message was posted onto the top of an emergency room operating table and left for sometime. Several people treated in the room claimed to have OBEs but could not tell what the message was or that it was even present. I'm not sure about the science but OBEs just aren't what they are claimed to be by many people.

And on a side note I read somewhere that dreams actually have nothing to do with your subconcious and aren't reflections of what you are really feeling because during sleep your frontal lobes are almost completely inactive, so dreams are just your brain reflecting on things that it is thinking about.

Replying to thread alone-
I don't know what I believe in, but the thread interested me.
As for "near death experiances" we can't say if they are true or not unless someone here has had one. I just know that when we're going to die we will, there's no question of that.
I guess I just answered my own belief. Sounds pretty morbid, I know, but I believe in death because, in the end, it's all that I can find which is true. Nature created us, nature will destroy us and that'll be it. If anyone wants to argue this theory, feel free.

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This is actually true. The flaws are relatively (ahem) minute and centre mainly on how you want to classify the universe. Is it expanding constantly? Is it's expansion rate decreasing/increasing? Is it expanding at all? Einstein effectively 'fudged' his equations with a term - the cosmological constant - that he introduced to his field equation in order that it agreed with his belief that the universe was static. However, Edwin Hubble - by analysing the red shift of distant stars - concluded that the universe was not only expanding, but expanding at an increased rate. Einstein was wrong! But most of these problems have been rectified.

Many scientists believe that in order to achieve a Theory of Everything (ToE), something has to give from either General Relativity or Quantum Mechanics and considering the remarkable success of the latter, it is likely to be GR.



We can actually test and observe particles that travel at the speed of light: neutrinos and anti-neutrinos being two such particles. We don't observe them directly since they have no mass, but we can detect the electromagnetic effects that they have on surrounding space as they pass through it.

The testing of particles close to and at the speed of light needs to incorporate Quantum effects such as the very act of observation. With particles as small as electrons and photons, observing them adds a significant amount of energy to their Quantum systems and can alter their orbits or behaviour. The main crux is that it can be done.



I studied an introduction to Special Relativity (SR) in the second year of my mathematics degree for 2 weeks and studied Relativity in the third year. The Relativity module consisted of 4 weeks of SR and 8 weeks of General Relativity (GR).

Basically, what you describe is time dilation. It's kind of hard to explain without the use of diagrams but I'll give it a shot. There are 3 things that happen to an object from the point of view of a stationary observer - in order that the speed of light stays constant - as it approaches the speed of light:

1) Time appears to flow slower - time dilation. If the stationary observer could read the clock on board the moving object, it's rate of flow would be slower than that of a clock about his person. This effect has been observed using ultra-accurate atomic clocks sent on airplane journeys.

2) The length of the object decreases - length contraction. If the stationary observer could measure the length of the moving object, it's length would be shorter than if it was at rest. For example a 20m long rocket travelling at 99% of the speed of light would appear to be 17m long to the stationary observer.

3) The mass of the object increases. If the stationary observer could measure the mass of the moving object, then it's mass would be greater than if it was at rest.

Now, at the speed of light, the following three effects would be observed:

1) Time would appear to have stopped in the frame of motion of the object.

2) The object will have no length.

3) The object will have infinite mass.

Point 3) is why the speed of light cannot be obtained by objects that possess mass. The amount of energy needed to accelerate an object to the speed of light increases to infinity as the object's mass increases to infinity.

It should also be noted that anybody aboard the moving object does not observe the effects that the stationary observer sees - everything appears normal. However, if they could observe the stationary observer it would appear that his clock is flowing at a slower rate, his length has contracted and his mass has increased. Hence relativity: It is impossible to say whether it is the stationary observer moving relative to the moving object or the moving object moving relative to the stationary observer.

I hope that this gives you an insight into the basics of Special Relativity.

For those wondering, "What the hell has this got to do with religion?" Well, it exacerbates how complex and logically founded science is in comaprison to religion. It demonstrates how scientific ideas have underlying theory which can be tested. Everything falls out of the equations and nothing is left to faith. I think this is why I am atheist: it is not enough to just believe in whatever the Church tells me to, I want the hard facts and logic of science.

FBS:

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No, I don't think we have. Indulge us.



Dude... what the fuck... I certainly hope thats a joke...

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Agnostic.

first you guys got to understand that in the makings of christainty the passages or whatever werent sopposed to be taking litterly, they were sopposed to be methaphors on how to live life but then some cockowang insisted they should be taken literly which is why we have a lot of dumb christians in this world.

Anyways i really dont think there is someone up in the sky judging my every move and i think when i die i wont go anywheres, ill be dead.

i could see how beleive in god in some sort of Spirtual level though...

Well dude, if you ever have an OBE there is a trick you can do to prove that it's real. I've been trying not-seriously for over a year, so therefore I haven't succeeded yet. If you ever want some methods for OBE PM me and I'll link you to some stuff. But here's what you do to prove that an OBE is real:

Take a card out of a deck and don't look at it. Put it somewhere high up; somewhere that you won't see it when you pass the area in real life. Now, if you successfully astrally project, you can look at the card while you're in the astral and compare it to the one in real life when you get back in your body. If it matches, wallah. You must not have any guesses as to what the card might be before you look at it, because you can manipulate the astral very easily and you may involuntarilly turn the card into the one you have in your mind, and therefore you will have failed.

No, its a mental image. When you enter REM sleep and sleep paralysis sets in you can dream that your having an OBE, I've done it before because I get sleep paralysis episodes quite often. There is no soul to leave the body and find the card. Like I said OBEs are extremely vivid dreams. Not to mention that that test is almost exactly what was done in the ER test, except that in yours I would know that there was a card and the test is ruined becuase there is a chance that I would see the same card in my dream as the one I had hidden completely by chance.

http://www.atheistnetwork.com/viewt...ighlight=#49795

This thread goes into greater detail starting at that post.

Damn, you e-debunked me with that rolleyes smiley. I can't believe some of you really thought I might be serious. The point is, I can say anything I want over the internet, just like you did. Your story was 100% bullshit (whether you are wrong or intentionally lied is something I won't determine) and so was mine. That was the point, and anybody who didn't pick up on that is either intoxicated or just plain stupid.

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You got me, too much vodka... but i did not intentionally lie i just repeated what happened to my grandmother....

Haha, okay man. I guess there's a chance that everytime someone does the card trick they exactly match the one in real life, eh? And extremely vivid dreams? How do you explain the continuous consciousness when someone has one?

I love to dload music, i = the download king. and i also buy cd's of artist i enjoy. but dload is fun

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Ceasing to exist is not a hard concept. What was it like before you were born? Were you chillin with the big man up there? You just WEREN'T there. You have no memory of it. I'd imagine death is a whole lot like that. You can't remember anything you've ever done, as you are no more, which actually makes accomplishments during your life nearly pointless. Sure, it isn't the most pretty or satisfying end to a life, but you may as well prepare yourself for it.

Maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about, or maybe I am 100% right. The only way to find out is to die, which is an extremely shitty experiment. Most humans want everlasting life. I think people found comfort in believing in an afterlife, so they aren't always fearing death.

Its a very good chance that whatever card they see in real life their brain will tell them is the one they saw in the dream. They wake up and write down what card they saw in their dream before looking for the card, but I still believe that having a random message in an OR is a much better test. It is a much more controlled experiment with results from different people. And this test has already proven that OBEs are nothing but lucid dreams.
I'm not sure of exactly what you mean about consciousness but if you mean that they reproduce in their dreams the world they inhabit very vividly then of course. It would only make sense that an OBE would take place starting in the room where you are sleeping. If it just started in some random place people would recount of dreams about them flying over and through random places not actually leaving the body.

I mean that there is an unbroken stream of consciousness when someone projects. You don't go to sleep, start to dream, and then have an OBE. When you make a purposeful effort to project, you don't fall asleep, and therefore you are not dreaming. You completely know what's going on the entire time. You're just a skeptic, and will be impossible to convince you otherwise. You're stuck in your beliefs, and therefore you will try to come up with some more counter arguments for everything I write.

Thanks John, after reading the words "expanding universe" everything I learned about the discrepencies within the Theory of Realitivity came rushing back to me. Also, your explation worked as I had some of that stuff explained to me before and I guess it sinks in alot better reading it from a computer chair at 6 at night instead of in an uncomfy wooden chair at like 8 am. Thanks for refreshing my brain! Its so strange reading that post, it brought back like everything I learned in AP Chemistry and Physics. Good stuff.

Did you ever learne about the whole thingw here we really are never touching anything? Like how since electrons are so extremly far away from the nucleus in comparion to the size of the particles, that matter is actually transparents and we sit on a chair we really are not touching it but really teh negativly charged electrons are pushing away from eachother. It is extremly interesting and really make you look at thing in a totaly different way. Look into it if you havnt already learned about it. I <3 physics.

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No problem, mate, glad to be of assisstance. Do a search in Chit Chat for the "Superstring" thread - there's quite a bit that you may find of interest in there.

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Would that happen to be on String theory? I just watched a show on it the other day, very interesting, explained well but it was a bit to simplified, cutting out many of the complex match, and not really explaining where integrals and diferentiation comes in.

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Yeah, it's an interesting theory. However I'm not sure that it will manifest itself beyond the microscopic scale and possibly even the Planck scale. Macroscopically, the downward force that your hand produces as you place it on a table will be easily enough to overcome the electromagnetic force that keeps electrons repulsed from the nucleus of the atoms.

A curious result of Quantum Mechanics is that if you were to try enough times, you could actually walk through an exceptionally thin wall. However, this would require every one of the atoms in your body to Quantum tunnel at the same time and, as you can no doubt imagine, the chances of this are almost infinitessimally slim.

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Yeah, string theory is mentioned. It's difficult to incorporate the advanced calculus methods into a program like you describe, though. Some of the equations are fiendish, particularly in Quantum Mechanics where many of the integrals can only be solved numerically. Both QM and GR are essentially elegant in their construction, but this elegance is borne out of the simplified notation of, quite honestly, disgusting mathematics.

As a rule of thumb, the use of differentiation is more prevailant in SR and GR whereas integration is the staple operation of QM. QM is essentially based on statistical analysis and the Wave Equation of a particle is an integral of a form of the exponential function - this results in a Guassian distribution. As string theory is constructed mainly in 11 dimensions, I can only speculate as to the level of mathematics involved - it would certianly leave my mind spinning.

GR makes use of Tensor Calculus, which is very difficult to explain but it is easier to differentiate in non-Euclidian (ie, not flat) space using tensor calculus than conventional calculus methods. A tensors is just a special form of matrix that describes a local area of space (curvature, length, width etc) and there are specific rules to follow when differentiating these tensors. Tensor Calculus was an area of mathematics that Einstein himself was not familiar with and one in which he received tutilage in order that his theory was completed.

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You gunna pick up Brian Greene's new book?

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Yeah, I might do now that I'm earning. With all my upcoming study though, I'm not sure if I'll have the time to give it the prolonged attention and thought that it merits. But yeah, it's probably on the horizon somewhere.

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i believe in a very mixed variety of things..agnostic, but ill try..

First of all i dont depend on science... i would want a career in electronics but it is still very hard for me to believe in a flow of electrons causing current.
however, some science theories are extremely compelling, for instance, If the universe is endless, then it is entirely possible that another exact replica of me has existed somewhere...therefore, i believe in Ghost and supernatural stuff because you cant really explain that, and my mind plays tricks on me believing that there could be something behind me at anytime....

i hate christianity, not because i listen to B.M and D.M but because it is entirely false. i was once a christian, and it gave me a false sense of security, but now i can see that it has been entirely invented by people. i wont go into it more, but it is one of the greatest flaws of humanity.

also if it is 'the only way' then howcome there are many different religions?

no, im not satanic, that would be twice as hypocritical and stupid if i didnt worship god but satan because i still believe Good over powers Bad.

Voodoo curses also compell me, and i tried one today, and i got extremely bad karma, so ill only be using those thoughts if i receive karma for no reason. so yeah, i believe in Karma, quite drastically.

Absolutely Everything is Coincidence.... yes everything..think of the most random thing and thats coincidence that it exists and coincidence that you thought of it.

But of course, everything i said could be wrong.
lol, its coincidence that i think this way,.. but yeah... i cant really put any evidence into what i have said but i believe in it so it helps me along

When i die ill just be sleeping, i dont feel anything when im sleeping and theres just nothing... like what you were before you were born..so i guess im open to the thought of reincarnation

What's so hard to believe about it? Electrodynamics is an observable phenomenon and is predicted by the underlying mathematical theory so I don't see where the problem lies in understanding that it can and does happen.

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It's not much harder than believing that an orange that you drop will fall. The only difference being that you can see the orange, but not the electrons.

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Precisely. A current flows due to a potential difference in the conductor that is analagous to gravitational potential difference. In a non-conducting material electron flow is completely random and so no potential develops. However, in a conductor a potential difference is created when the flow of electrons is polarised by a moving magnetic field. This causes an imbalance in electrical potential and an electromotive force is generated to restore the balance. This leads to the flow of electrons within the conductor due to the electrons seeking a lower state of energy. Thus a current is registered in the conductor. I see nothing at all to distrust about this, especially since it is observable and measurable.

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Well if they aren't asleep then they claim to have control of their souls, which opens a whole new field of topics. And you say skeptic like it’s a bad thing. I should just believe people every time they say they have gone through something amazing or unexplainable? If there is scientific evidence to support the idea that OBEs are hallucinations then why shouldn't I believe it? Saying that you believe something happened because you "just know" may sound more interesting and cool than a scientific explanation but it doesn't mean it’s true. When you can show me some sound evidence that OBEs are actually your consciousness projecting itself from the body then why wouldn't I believe you? If that is really what is happening then it should be easy enough for you to prove.

Atheist

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I believe in god. But not what the christians try to make you think.

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id like to hear someone refute this becasue i am a christian and ive heard other eveolutionary flaws such as this one but ive never heard a scientific believer argue it successfully, except for a few things ive heard mansley say in other forums which i generally didnt understand but oh well.

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Hehe, man, thats still fucked up.

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Biology is Chris's particular field of expertise but I would argue that some of the flagellum did evolve and subsequently died out due to the detrimental effect to their chances of survival. Hence the evolution of that particular species was the specific act of rejecting any evolutionary changes.



We have understood as far back as to within a few seconds of the Big Bang happening for a long time and Inflation theory has further strengthened our comprehension in the past 15 years or so. Big Bang theory has never been based on energy being conjured out of empty space. It is thought that there have also been Big Crunches, ie, when the expansion of the universe halts and gravitational effects lead to the universe shrinking back to it's point of origin. Then another Big Bang takes place and so on and so forth: energy isn't being created or destroyed in this process.

Another theory is that the Big Bang was the result of a collision between two massive Branes. Brane is a contraction of the word membrane and they are exactly that, only on a universal scale. Energy is also not being created or destroyed in this model. Energy is like the Universe: it has and always will be there.

Entropy is just a measure of disorder in a system. For example, a fully intact (and thus ordered) vase has lower entropy than a smashed, disordered vase. It is also the measure of energy in a system that cannot be used to do work. Now, if the universe is considered to be an isolated system (ie, it doesn't receive energy from any external source) its entropy should increase with time until there comes a point whereby there is no more energy to facilitate growth. This is known as the Universal Heat Death theory.

However, once gravity and quantum effects are taken into consideration, this heat death theory does not hold. Our current understanding of thermodynamics is not able to explain what will happen on the universal scale but before Einstein, Newtonian gravitational theory was also not able to explain the grand scheme of things so just because our current level of understanding doesn't yield the answers we desire doesn't mean that the existence of God is proven.

At the turn of the 20th Century it was thought that man knew everything about the Universe and then came one of the most radical 100 years of science that humanity has ever seen. General Relativity, Quantum Theory, the discovery of DNA and the Standard Model of particles have all advanced Physics, Chemistry and Biology to new planes of knowledge. There is no doubt in my mind that science will eventually solve the Universal conundrum whether it be in another 50 years or 50'000 years. There will never be evidence or a "Theory of God" since religion is based entirely on faith.

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John is the reason I can't stand Americans. Most of us are truly uneducated and lazy. Me, I'm just lazy. Otherwise, I'm damn sure I'd be incredibly successful in life.

But hey, that american gene kicks in.

Unless you can give me a good arguement on why you believe in god, you cannot call yourself christian, or even religious. I, unlike many people, can actually give reasons why I think god exists (or in most cases, those who do believe in god, couldn't make an arguement to a three year old). I won't bash anyone for their beliefs unless they cannot give me an educated response on why.

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Would you care to give said reasons on why you believe God exists?