God? - Page 5

I m not saying that you should disregard all logic. What I am saying is that we should realize that we are more than logic, more than our personalities.

Use logic when it is neccessary. If we are constantly analysing things, we miss the other part of life-control ur logical thinking, don't let yourself be controlled by it.
Truth, real Truth, which tells you the meaning of Life, which allows you to come face to face with God, with Life as it truly is, can't be known by logic. It is a natural process. Children question intensively, thinking if a question can be formultated, it must have an answer. But as you grow maturer you realize you don't really know, youcan't really know anything, and it is then when you realize what Life is.

If this is realized and understood, then when you grow old, you will grow in wisdom. When you are crippled, you won't be sick of life, you won't be afraid, as death is the greatest mystery, if the fear of it is removed, then it almost becomes spiritual.

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You cant have a valid reason for murdering a 6 month old baby and depositing the body in a drain. You may be able to explain someones disposition through traumatic childhood experiences but this does not justify their crime and it does not make them a good person. Imperfections are all around us no ones perfect as they say. Look at our bodies they are far from perfect, we need glasses to see, we catch dieseases, we are born with incureable conditions.

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Yes I may murder a 6 month old baby, but will that make me a 'evil' person? I may feel guilt about it, I may rue it for the rest of my life, I may die with a splinter in my heart, but thats not the point. If after that, I am ready to die for somebody I don't know, If after that I try to make the world a better place, if I start spreadingf love, will I still be a bad person?

No human being is 1 dimensional.

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Look at our bodies they are far from perfect, we need glasses to see, we catch dieseases, we are born with incureable conditions

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You just have to look. How can you not be filled in awe when you try to understand your body, what a wonderous miracalous machine it is, look at the green grass, it is all so overwhelming, sometimes you can't quite fully understand what they really are. You may scientiically define a blade of grass, you may scientiically define what gravity is, but it is just shallow understanding. You can never understand what a blade of grass is, and that is the beauty of Life.

Evil is all around us, evil is in the government, evil is in war, evil is in you and me, it is everywhere, we are not all good, we are good and bad, sometimes only bad, sometimes only good. if you believe in God then you must believe in the devil as well, so to say there is no evil is to say there is no devil therefore there is no God.

I am not really overwhelmed with green grass all that much either, if i was blind then how could i appreciate it? our senses are amazing and invaluable but they are a result of natural selection.

How is there evil in the government? how is there evil in war? Bush may have started wars, but does that make him evil?
All human beings may commit so called mistakes, but we are just like children. If a child does something wrong, is he declared to be evil?

if you believe in the scripteral God, and that to withought deep understanding, only then do you have to beleieve in evil.

If you were blind, your life experaince would be different. You may not know what a blade of grass is, but you would be able to be awe and wonder at other things.
can there be an ocean with only one shore? Ponder how that can be and you may realize the limitations of logic.

our sense being a result of natural selection does not make them any less miraculous.

Angel of Death - I'm Impressed - you're on the right track.

Let me just offer that there is evil but there is no devil, but there is evil The (Association For Research and Enlightment) ARE has studied this to some extent, I've read just an article or two. People are not evil - but evil controls people, some more and some less for various different reason. The decisions of the person is often to blame for decisions they have made - but that is not always the case.

Evil however remains a mystery - there is a possibility that it is our own creation - but I would have to study before I decided that.

I don't beleive there is a devil. You don't have to believe in the devil to believe in God. God is the light and the creator, If God is the light then Saten is the darkness, and darkness is simply nothing, the lack of creation.

hmmm, yes who knows, perhaps there may be evil, who knows perhaps there may be a devil, you can't know anything ultimately.

citykid do you follow any religion? i assume not because religions that worship God also talk of a devil and evil and the balance betweem good and evil. so to say you believe in God but not a devil is saying you believe in your own God who you just made up in your head.
corupt governments in africa that create civil wars and people fighting and torturing each other, people who get kicks out of seeing others suffer. is this not evil? Hitler was the personification of evil.

Yes - I have my own religion - its a long story - one of these days I will write the whole story down and publish it on the web so that when others ask me I can just give them the link - The short version. I studied all the major religions and a few more to decide which religion I would follow and I decided on the Gnostic religion, it made the most sense to me. One night, for no reason what so ever I had this dream, it was just a voice that said, "It is true that the false god made the body, but the false god also made the soul, but the true God takes you as if you were a ball of clay and makes you unto himself, it takes some time."

You see the Gnostics believed that the false god made the body but the true God made the soul.

So that is what I believe, its my little piece of truth, and you won't hear it preached in any church or written down in any scripture but I never the less believe it, so I have my own religion.

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corrupt governments in Africa that create civil wars and people fighting and torturing each other, people who get kicks out of seeing others suffer. is this not evil? Hitler was the personification of evil.

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You are right - there is evil in this world, and evil causes these people to do very evil stuff. You mention Africa - it is horrible, there are whole villages of just women and children. Children are starving to death and the women are being raped after husbands and fathers have been murdered just to destroy a race of people - and all the world governments know that this is happening while only a few good citizens are volunteering to help to only witness humanity at its worse. Indeed, this is evil.

Like you, I have only witnessed it. There was a time once when I was in the Navy when my best friends decided that they should brake my arms because I was the Master Helmsman and we were in rough seas in the North Atlantic and running out of fuel, our Captain tried to keep us out to take on fuel out at sea. Our super structure was cracked. They figured if they broke my arms we could take on fuel and we would have to go to port. It took some time but Buba Pate finally talked them out of it by explaining that we might not have enough fuel to make to port, they all apologized to me, but indeed I saw evil that day.

I knew a guy who claimed to be the son satan, I watched him become a Christian and I saw him change but he still swore there were things we was not allowed to tell anyone, this man feared evil more than anyone I have ever known. His whole family worshiped Satan and all his brothers and sisters died and when his mother died, that is when he went to the Chaplain to turn his life over to Christ because he believed he would be next to die.

I believe in evil - but I don't know what to believe about it, I really don't know enough about it - but I don't believe there is a devil or Satan.

The way I interpret the scriptures on this subject, the Aquarian gospel gives a better interpretation of the temptation of Christ explaining that he was tempted by himself and I believe that we are the devil and the fallen angels cast down to earth, and surely the evil we do is evidence of that.

Yes, so maybe there may be 'evil', but even if you acknowledge evil, you still can't say human beings and gavernments are evil.
I can't understand, the Christs and Muhammads, who should be the role models for their followers, really aren't. If you are a christian, then why can't you take Jesus Christ's example? Here was a man, who loved everyone, people torured and ultimately killed him, but still he loved them. Was he wrong to do so? are we right when we say that person is bad this person is evil, when he had a completely different way of looking at things? If you are an ardent follower of any religion, look at the preacher, and learn. look that they all loved everyone, they rose above the meager human prejuidises and loved everyone.

I don't know what is going on in Islam but I suspect it is the same. In the Christian religion there appears to be a growing split between those who believe in helping the poor and those who believe in helping themselves, between those who believe in helping the earth and those who believe in helping themselves and between those who believe in making peace and those who believe in destroying their enemies.

I don't think its that simple. The thing is, if you follow any religion too literally, it has negative effects. Religion is not the ultimate knowing, it just pushes you in the right direction or gives u a meaning somewhat. The trouble happens when you follow religion so blindly that you refuse to learn from life, and life is bigger than religion.

I don't know enough about Islam, but the christian churches you don't hear much about that are earth friendly peace loving churches. The Amish, Quakers, Mininnites and the Salvation Army (and I'm sure I've missed a few). These are peace loving people and the Salvation Army I believe are at the fore front of helping the poor and down troddin while the Amish are at the fore of being friendly with the earth and none of these religions would ever support a war or anykind of terrorist activity.

I certainly could not see any negative effects if you followed any of these dogmas to strongly, I can only see goodness. But I can't say the same about other churches. Like the 700 club, the most powerful Christian organization (financially) who actually supports Bush and war and they don't care about the earth or the poor, however 86 evangelical organizations have split off from them, things are changing.

I'm an athiest god doesnt exist.

see thats the problem, people see the negative aspects of religion and what it's doing to the world, and so make up judgments and then close their minds. Not following religion is a quite mature thing to do, not believing in a judgmental god is also a quite mature thing to do-not beleiving in a higher aspect of life, believing the world functions soley on logic and there isn't even a remote possibiltiy od any God-nowthats immature