Lets try to see the other side of things for a change. Sometimes people are so stubbornly set in their way of thinking that they refuse to allow themselves to even consider the evidence or argument of the other side. Both sides accuse the other of this. And debate goes on and on with no one taking in anything and seriously considering it (points go in one ear and out the next in and endless quest to provide a comeback or to one-up your opponent, not learn anything). How about we prove this is not true about ourselves and try the following thing i just thought up. (perhaps this has been done before, if so, forgive me )

I'd like you guys to post what you believe and the most compelling argument from the other side of the aisle.


From any responses we can perhaps provide some insight on which side is truly stubbornly held to their belief regardless of reason. if one or both sides are impervious to reason then there is really no point in debating religion is there?

here i go:

I'm agnostic. I believe that the existence of a god is unknown and unknowable and that all religions are false pathetically human attempts to fill in this gap in knowledge.

The most compelling evidence for the knowledge that a god(s) exists would be the notion that there must have been a beginning and for there to have been a beginning there might have had to been a "beginner". i.e the cosmological argument.

I believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

i guess we are in fact all a bunch of know it alls who do not pay attention to the opposing views.

one wonders what is the point of debate then.

As to me, there is no debate, no need to debate, nothing to broach. I have proof that God exists and Jesus is Lord. If you haven't gotten that gift, so be it. My experience is mine, not yours. Nothing to argue, prove to you, etc. It is what it is and I am blessed. Nothing stubborn about it!!!

very well.



Merry Christmas

Basically, you gotta copy and paste a bunch of crap that no one will read (or understand) and come up with a fancy sounding word to describe your beliefs like "panthiest" or "deist" or "neopagan" or "atheist",something like that, and then you will fit in around here just fine.

I can't imagine any reasonable person arguing with your view. I certainly agree with it.

I'm sure you'll get a lot of responses from unreasonable people though.

As far as compelling evidence for the existence of spirit, I would say that the most compelling evidence comes from Eastern Mysticism since they claim that the spirit can indeed be experienced by everyone through the systematic practice of meditation, purification, and enlightenment as well as a basic understanding of their philosophy.

So they do more than just teach a belief system, they offer an actual method to know your true spiritual nature.

For anyone who is interested I recommend Deepak Chopra's DVDs.

A good place to start is with his 2-DVD set: Deepak Chopra: The Essential Collection.

This is the best argument I've ever heard for the existence of spirit.

In truth, I have never heard a compelling argument for pure atheism (atheism as defined as meaning 'non spiritual')

It seems to me that the main argument of atheists is that they have no reason to believe in anything they can't see, touch, hear, taste or smell.

Well, duh? Where do they think all that stuff came from? To try to claim that there is no such thing as the 'miraculous' in the face of the existence of the unvierse itself is utterly silly.

However, I do believe that many people who call themselves 'atheists' are actually spiritual at some level and are merely rejecting the idea of external all-powerful godheads (especially those that are affiliated with dogma and mythology).

I certainly don't blame them for that. Some of the most popular dogmatic religions hold that God is a jealous egotistist pig who gets peeved at anyone who doesn't believe in the mythology that claims that he's a jealous egotisticial pig.

I think the argument that such dogmatic mythologies are ungodly and unholy speaks for itself in the quiet silence of sanity.

To suggest that God would be such a profane idiot is an insult to any intelligent human being, as well as an insult to any God that might possibly exist.

So, yes, I think we should all confess to being agnostics because clearly this is all we can be. Even those utterly insaned and profanly demented mythologies proclaim that all humans are restricted to faith alone. Even they confess that all humans must necessarily be confined to the world of the "agnostic believer" who is merely placing faith in the words of men.

However, we can indeed be hopeful that there is some truth to spirituality, and to encourage that hope I highly recommdend Dr. Chopra's presentations.

I'm constantly finding myself saying Im an Atheist and then I bite my tongue an say no, I really meant to say Agnostic. I try to bullsh!t myself into just believing that its an easy mistake because they both start with the letter "A". Thats not entirely true however.

Saying you are an Atheist is truly cutting your arm off. Its a cliff I am just not willing to jump yet though my brain might be telling me it is really the most logical approach to take at this point in time knowing what you know about humans and their supposed "nature"

So I basically still say Agnostic and wait around hoping, like everyone else. Im just too lazy to meditate. Instead I have a rock polisher.

Well part of that is we ALL have Egos. To deny this simple fact would be an exercise in futility. The ego is not a bad thing. It creates a sense of propriety and who you are. So when someone begins to chisel away at the sand castle you have spent years building, its only natural for you to argue. That doesnt mean that grains arent sinking in. It happens. It happens more than you know. Its doesnt matter though. We are all individual people and we will learn from one another just from reading what the other is typing. It does not matter if we formally "agree" or not. The likelihood of that ever happening in the religion forum is about the same as a heavy snow in Hawaii. It might happen but what are the odds?

Hey, rock polishers are cool.

You can always meditate later.

I have no evidence or argument for my side and I have never tried to convince anyone to believe what I believe.

Thats because you are a Witch/Saint. There is not arguing with that because you embody the best of each.

I am gonna get a t-shirt that says that.

I agree, all religions are false. People need to start believing in themselves, and the people around them. How anyone can possibly believe anything that was written back then blows me away. Dennis

Bit of a contradiction there DennisYou say that we should "believe in ourselves" yet at the same time admit that we(humans) in the past were liars.I didnt get the memo that said humans stopped lying.

I don't get the whole athiest/agnostic thing. I perfer to call it what it is, comon sense. Since there is no real evidence that there is now, or ever was a god, it is up to the believers to prove that there is or was. I wish them all the luck in the world trying to get any clear thinking people to believe that hooey. Dennis

Curious...you said Merry Christmas. Does that mean you celebrate?

God isn't about Religion.

But about Relationship.

And God Simply WANTS a Relationship

back with His People that He Loves

and Created.

Which is WHY He Sent Us Jesus.

Jesus is The Way ...back to the

Father.

And by the way....

Christianity is NOT about Religion ,

but about RELATIONSHIP.....

BACK to the Father.

Thru Christ Jesus.

Anyone Listening ...

and Hearing this...

yet?



(Man made religion, not God).

Dennis its simply two different designations. Someone who refers to themselves as a staunch material Atheist really believes in nothing that they can not see in front of them. They do not accept the notion of souls either. They believe that we are born and that we die and this is it. Get over it.

An Agnostic is a little less hardcore.They kind of take a slightly less assertive stance and claim that they dont know and there is no way to know and its nothing they feel the need to invest a lot of time worrying about while they live on this Earth. At least thats my personal definition of Agnostic but someone might argue if they want to get technical.

Im speaking from my own frame of reference on both terms.