very sad yet very true

[darrianation]

Why God is still important in our modern society

It has been generally understood that the most important single function of government is to secure and protect the individual freedoms and rights of its citizens. Where do the rights come from? And how can we best secure them?

Thomas Paine, back in the days of the American Revolution said:

“Rights are not gifts from one man to another, nor are they gifts from one class of men to another…It is impossible to discover any origin of rights otherwise than in the origin of man; it consequently follows that rights appertain to man in the right to his existence.”

Thomas Jefferson asked:

“Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these are of the gift of God?

Alexis De Tocqueville a French historian who was in America studying the penal system back in 1831observed in his book “Democracy In America:

“I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodius harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there; in here rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

The history of nations is a cycle:

1. From bondage to spiritual faith
2. From spiritual faith to courage
3. From courage to freedom
4. From freedom to abundance
5. From Abundance to selfishness
6. From selfishness to complacency
7. From complacency to apathy
8. From apathy to fear
9. From fear to dependency
10. From dependency to bondage

I would say we are well on our way to the dependency stage.

What many folks call ‘natural rights’ our founding fathers called ‘inalienable rights’. They believed these rights were ordained by God. And what rights that are ordained by God no man can take away.

If there is no God then our rights are surly derived from man and what man gives he can take away. If this is so then there can be no moral foundation to base our ‘rights’ upon and we live at the whims of man and , especially the better armed men.

In fact, our ‘rights’ then become the fashion of the day, what is popular today is out of fashion tomorrow.

But Jesus said he is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Therefore the moral compass will always point true and isn’t subject to the whims of man and or pop-culture.

The greatest gift we have been given by God is the gift of free agency. But free agency is a double edged sword because man can choose to be righteous or wicked, he can choose to resist evil or he can tolerate and appease it, he can choose to be courageous or a coward, choose between charity and greed, and choose between freedom and bondage.

Folks then blame God for the horrors of man. They say “See there is no God because how can God allow such suffering.” God didn’t do it, man did. It is because we are free to choose (free agency) but there are natural consequences to making the wrong choices. If a society or civilization chooses to live the principles of man rather than God, man will suffer; unfortunately even good individuals may suffer.

I cannot prove to you that God exists, nor can anyone prove that he doesn’t.

I can tell you from experience that the ol’ adage “There is no atheist in a fox hole” is true. Once after a particularly furious and brutal firefight, the kind that only by divine intervention you walk a way from. When it was over I looked over at my two teammates one, a devout and self-professed atheist was crouching with his eyes closed, forehead resting on his rifle. I couldn’t hear all that he was saying but I was able to make out quit distinctly, “Thank you God, thank you!”

I have seen some amazing things in my life, marvelous works and wonders, and things that can only be describes as miracles.

What Christianity has taught me is that we need to have conviction, courage, tenacity, understanding, humility, responsibility, and above all faith.

For the sake of argument, suppose there is no God what does the Christian loose? Nothing, but while living he gains a moral compass and inspiration for how he should live his life and more importantly, he can live his life as a freeman. And the world is a better place for it.

If there is a God what does the Atheist have to loose? He’ll have a lot of explaining to do.

[kingoftheforest]

All I have to say.

I guess well just have to agree to disagree here again. the Bible doesn't prove anything. It's just a book.

If gawd really wanted people to believe in him and he really wanted to prove his existence and faith wasn't necessary he would just show up and say

"Hi I'm God"
To be a believer you must have "faith". So there it is again in the equation.



My opinion is that God doesn't exist in the sense that he is a corporal being that communicates with people. God is just a tool used to control the masses and squash free thinking.

There is something keeping the universe from roiling into chaos but it's more of a loose consciousness that everything alive possesses.

In the religious sense faiths a part of the equation. How do we know Moses spoke to "god" how do we know it wasn't the devil?

There's no proof we just have to have faith that what was written down by men is true. So even then if you take out faith you have nothing but a happy story.

Where is the solid proof Jesus walked the Earth in a book that was written when only world leaders and their scribes had enough of an education to read?

I'll pass on that kind of proof. We could argue in circles forever on this subject too, but I have limited time now a days.

Thanks guys.

Later.

KOTF

[kingoftheforest]

You love to "agree to disagree," huh?

I wasn't debating the existence of God, KOTF. I was debating the "logic" that proof of something that exists on faith suddenly makes it invalid.

I was not debating God or religion. I was pointing out that your argument was inherently flawed, and that it did not hold true for any other thing - or the thing to which you applied it.

I'm honestly not trying to be dismissive here. Religion is an argument that just goes round and round that's why I seldom get draw into discussions about it. It's a topic that's purely opinion.

As for my logic, I'll break it down

Faith=belief belief=god. You can't have belief without faith. If god was proven to exist then you would not need faith to believe it would be a fact.

Since the whole point of god is the faith that you are following the right path and that is his test for you, if you remove the need for faith than there is no need for god because there would be no belief.

And as for the "agree to disagree" I got that straight from you Mike...there were many a thread where you said that and then locked them so what's good for the goose is good for the gravy

Nana nana boo boo

[Durete]

Heh very nice post there darriantion

to the poster with that milkpack as picture:
You're a tad wrong there. belief doesn't equal God.

science is an belief system aswell.
let's get back to the definition of science:
science=what people believe that most likely happened(or happens).

they calculate and measure all kind of things, however that only makes their guesses a tad accurater but it stay guesses and conclusions by methods that people believe to be the best method for comming closest to the absolute truth.
what if the methods or way of thinking is wrong? than the either try to find prove for it, or fake prove of it.(Yes they do... pure for the money of it.)
an little example of that:

this hoax is paid by an specific goverment to secure the scholar system.

people have been sended out to prove that man-apes existed(to prove the darwin-method of evolution). there has never been found any prove for that, they did bring thought an body of an ape and the feet+jaw of an human (or otherways around) and created with that the so famous "Lucy". whereof the records show that the jaw has been found around 5 kilometres further and around 50 meters deeper into the ground than the torso of the skeleton, this is the hardest prove that there is that humans and apes came from the same forfather

Now this little story doesn't tell much by itself, however this info came directly from the log off the archeologists that where send to found prove for the existance of that apes turned into humans by evolution.
When the info was trown into an group of scientists without telling where it came from and what it is about, they had to say their thoughts of the findings+the skeleton of that being.
they all concluded that this skeleton could simply not come from the same being since of the age of both skeletons(around 50 meters deeper in the ground is quite some age difference...at least a hundred years, if not thousands.) aswell as the dna of the bones didn't match, so far for the evidence that humans are evolved from something else

other foundings that somewhat "proved" ape-monkeys,
is the skeleton of an old man that had very serious reuma so his spine was totally wrongly grown and he had to walk while bent forwards a bit,
when seeing this skeleton the archeologists said "No human could walk like this, this is exactly in between the position of apes that walk and an healthy human that walks so it is prove that humans are evolved from apes!"

anyway I drifted away from the basic topic
in simple: belief doesn't relate to God but to like 99% that you ever have been taught at school, by the media, by the goverment, by your parents and other teachers.

[Toudiyama]

"science=what people believe that most likely happened(or happens)."

no it is not. that's the creationist view of Science
Nothing is accepted in science soley on the basis of beliefs, also everything may be proven wrong on a later time

If science was what people believe that most likely happened, then we would still be thinking the earth is flat as there would be no reason for proving it right or wrong

the research might be driven by a believe certain things work certaain ways, but no Real scientist (as opposed to papermill scientist) wouldd stick to his believe if the evidence prroofs it wrong

In science everyone is encourage to put your theories to the test
In Creationist sscience, which obviously is believe basedm, what it sez in the bible is taken as the truth, anything that proofs things in the bible as wrong are simply dismissed.



Science=research, without research there is no science, no matter if it start with an initial "believe"

to close I would restate the statement but now as Science= what based on the evidence and present knowhow is most likely to have happened or is happening

[Durete]

Still the evidense is only evidense based on an certain method of thinking,
and the most likely still shows that it's guessing work.

anyway you can agree or not but the definition of science what I gave came directly from several scientists where I have had -VERY long- discussions with.

there is no difference between science and what you call "Creationist science".

we do not discard anything where people bring actually steady prove for.
this isn't the case with anything yet that is trying to prove that the Bible's wrong on any point thought.
the evolution theory the biggest of them, has more things that is an prove against that the evolution theory could be truth than that it shows that it could be truth .

However the story's in the bible that could be tracked down is never disproved that it could've happened.
Like the Big Flood or something like that.

[Toudiyama]

the evolution theory the biggest of them, has more things that is an prove against that the evolution theory could be truth than that it shows that it could be truth .

RIGHT...sorry but that's a load of bolocks, yes there are still holes in the tree of life, but evolution has been seen albeit being micro evolution
now I'm not the best peron to discuss this but on one of ther talk origin newsgoups you will find people that know more about this matter than the whole of Defend net together

there is no evidence for a big flood (one that would cover the earth) as for that evedence would be present all over the world

Oh and scientist do not try to proof the bible wrong at all instead creationist scientist try to proof legitimate science wrong
for this they come up with rediculous things, for instance acccording to them evolution didn't happen but to explain the huge amount off species they come up with MACRO evolution

what the bible describes is not how life started but how civilisation started
the stories in the bible are based on certain facts for instance the Garden of Eden excisted on this earth
some of the stories are based om multiple events centuries appart

Now again I'm not a scientist but I would urge you to post your remarks on talk origin and they they can exactly tell you why it is flaud

[Durete]

RIGHT...sorry but that's a load of bolocks, yes there are still holes in the tree of life, but evolution has been seen albeit being micro evolution
now I'm not the best peron to discuss this but on one of ther talk origin newsgoups you will find people that know more about this matter than the whole of Defend net together:

Wrong, micro evolution has been proven yes, however macro evolution not.(aka humans that are evolved from the same ancesters of apes etc.)
No human being has ever witnessed an macro evolution.

there is also prove that dinosaurs could have never lived inside an atmosphere as we know now since they would die since of lack of oxygen.
That doesn't mean that dinosaurs didn't exist(they did) however the whole evolution theory is based on an atmosphere and world conditions as we know now- biggest mistake ever-, there is found prove that before the big flood(ice age as we know it now.) the whole world was different.
there where human beings before that aswell as dinosaurs,
human beings where between 120 and 300 % as big as now and dinosaurs well a load more bigger. as the 'dinosaurs' live now.
Go look into the nature, triceratops for instance where nothing more but a certain specie of an lizard, and it also has been proven that on high oxygen.
(before the flood there was like 30 to 40% oxygen in the air while now it's more around 10% if not less) creatures grow a load bigger-aswell as humans.
(they have tested it out on both fish-like creatures as lizards, lets take the pirahna test: normally they are very small, after the tests they grew 50 centimeters higher, and even more longer aswell. certain lizzard species grew 500% (!!!!) larger asthey would in the normal atmosphere with the low amount of oxygen in it as it is on this moment.(after the flood)

Same reason why in the same samples of earth where they have found dinosaur footprints human footprints next too them.

The evolution theory was an nice start, however it is nothing more than an start. assuming that macro evolution happened since micro evolution happens without any form of prove that macro evolution EVER has happened is simply wrong, and an lie to spread out.

also as said before they didn't take in account that the whole situation was different back then, where plants, humans, animals all grew way bigger since of an total different atmosphere as we know now.

besides: there has been offered multiple million dollars for over 30 years now to come with any prove of that the evolution theory has happened, no single scientist has come to collect that money yet, if they have prove that the evolution theory is correct, why didn't they collect that easy money and proved it once and for all?
same counts btw for any form of prove that the earth is older than what the Bible says: wich is around 220.000 years. no-one came to collect that money aswell. since they simply cannot prove that.


edit: P.s. the Bible does say how the creation came to start not only civilisation

[GQchris]

Blessed Be Your Name

[Durete]

Love that song :> bit 'easy going' for my taste but still :>
Love the more lifely christian rocksound like hillsong has a few numbers off, aswell as toby mac/delirious etc.