Feb 10, 1998
In preparation for my next entry I have done a careful reading of the over 40 printed pages (and that's with the fonts turned down a notch) that have been created here. I have discovered that most of us have used this page because we have been moved by the movie or an issue raised in the movie. Many of us are not interested in persuading others to our way of thinking, we just want a place to express our thoughts on it all. A few of us have tried to convince others of the error of their ways.
Well, here is a clean slate, tell the world what is on your mind about science religion or the movie Contact. I know it can be a little intimidating to express what you may think about all of this. Thoughts about God (or no god) can be very personal, expressions of believing (in aliens or whatever) without seeing are vulnerable to attack, but I’ve learned a little from every entry here. There has only been one or two "attackers" here and even they were polite and considerate. That’s not bad for nine months worth of entries. So don’t be shy, tell us what you think. If you’ve read this far I know you have an opinion, share it with us.
Feb 20, 1998
Things are quiet around here lately. Maybe enough has been said. I'll stay open for the benefit of the people who may be just discovering the movie, this site, ect. My new entry is complete (for now). I put it at the end of the 12 day debate.
Feb 20, 1998
Wow! It's great to see a fresh start to this discussion site. I was keeping an eye on, but feeling very intimidated by the great February 6 debate. Worth reading, though. Thanks for your sensitivity through it all.
I saw Contact twice in the theater (which is extremely rare for me). I haven't rented the movie yet because I am waiting to purchase it. I'm a purist in some sense, I guess. Does anyone out there know when it will be for sale in retail stores? Maybe I'm just missing it.
Thanks again for this thought provoking site. I'll come again....
Feb 27, 1998
I see that this page has gotten quite a bit quieter. I don't know what everyone else's reasons for not putting in entries are, but mine is because I think I have said just about everything that I could say about this movie and the subjects involved. I believe, however, that in the interest of continuing the flow of this website, and because I like reading new responses, I will attempt to find something new to say.
There are certainly a lot of types of movies that exist. The action movies tend to be many, and one can rarely remember any but the very best of them, likewise for the dramatic movies. Sci-fi movies tend to be intriguing, I know that 2001 and 2010 are a couple of excellent sci-fi movies that still keep people fascinated, but that's because those movies are a couple of the best that the sci-fi genre has to offer. But are they really, there's close encounters, and alien, and star trek (all of them), I suppose that sci-fi, even when they're old and outdated show us something about art and imagination that the everyday drama, horror, or action flick just can't portray. I know that there are those of you out there that cling to these kinds of movies, I do to, but there's something about a sci-fi movie that explores deeper into the imagination.
Contact was not a sci-fi movie, at least, not entirely. There was some drama involved, I would say that certainly with the dramatics involved between Ellie and Palmer, but also with the social issues that were mentioned. I find that a lot of times science fiction genre tends to forget about society as we know it by placing the setting in some other kind of society similar to ours, but without the problems, or setting the scene in a futuristic society where there are few problems.
What I liked about this movie, OK I'm finally getting to the point, is that it explored, as we have seen before on this page, a very controversial issue. It did so, however, in almost an unbiased manner, or at the very least in a way that people of all kinds could enjoy the movie. At the same time, this movie provided the audience with a fairly believable event that would certainly change the world. At least you thought that it would change the world... that was the big twist in the end. The whole time you're sitting there thinking that there's no way the world would ever be the same after this discovery, and here we find in the end, that nothing changes. I guess the whole point is that nothing changes, even though everything is changing constantly. Hmmm, does that make any sense?
Well anyway, I think that this movie will continue to be intriguing for a very long time. Yes, it will become outdated, very quickly I might add, due to the use of President Clinton, and the continual display of computer equipment that has probably been outdated since before the movie started. The movie, though, will continue to intrigue people and raise questions and doubts about some of the beliefs that many of us hold most fundamental and upon which we base our lives. That is why I enjoy it, and why I consider it's statements important, and the effect that it proposes an issue very worthy of thought.
http://www.hsv.tis.net/~ke4vol/evolve/cover.html
Mar 7, 1998
I have been carrying around this quote
from Booth Tarkington for about 20 years:
"Mystics always hope that science will
someday overtake them."
I personally think that is what Carl
thought also, and we are getting nearer
that someday.
Mar 8, 1998
I think that something will happen but when it does it will not happen in one big boom, but a slow process that is well planned by everything. It had already started to happen since we have found traces of life on mars, we as a society can not handle life on another world coming at us full force. This is the way it will happen
Mar 10, 1998
I don't want to start up the whole 12 day debate again, but I would like to set the record straight on one point. A certain person who shall remain nameless included the following comment in one of his/her entries:
"But I am so glad that many scientists, like me, who is a researcher in Astrophysics, had already knew the truth first, so that we can be much more open minded before doing our researches in order to know more about the truth completely. And the famous Albert Einstein is like this to..."
This individual had earlier identified himself/herself as a Christian so it seems to me that he/she is implying that Einstein is also a Christian of some sort. However the following direct quote from Einstein himself settles this discrepancy:
---
I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism.
-Albert Einstein
---
Anyway, thanks for letting me clear that up.
Mar 10, 1998
OK, ummm, yer welcome (anytime!).
Christian,
I just want to clarify that I didn't say Einstein is a Christian. If you really have read all I said. Of course, his belief is different from Christianity. As I had mentioned many times, his belief of God' existence is the one in Spinoza's philosophy.
Also, I have some friends who are the doctors. They know how human, our science and our technology are so useless while they were just watching a lot of their patients dying without any help at all. So, as you said in the 12 days debates that you believe human, our science and technology are the greatest one, you just haven't experience the real face of the limitation of us, our science, technology and so on. So, please be humble and think deeply of everything around you. I think you may get close to the truth more while you really experience it yourself. Maybe on the day you experience the situation of death. Forgive me that I am saying this but it is true. People are pride because they don't know much things until they really experience the real difficult time, then they have nothing to say.
If some of you think I had any personal attacks to you guys, you just don't know different cultures of different people. In my culture, I am always saying the same things in same attitude to my people as what I said to you guys. This is normal to us. So, the same things that I was harmed by some of you whom I thought they had personal attacks to me too. It made me so uncomfortable, so that I was kept saying you had useless and worthless attacks to me and so on. As I said we are just in different cultures.
Hope you guys think things more deeply and widely, thank you for your listening.
Mar 12, 1998
Hmmmm, yer welcome too (who ever his/her/you are)!
Mar 16, 1998
Macross, I sincerely apologize for taking you out of context regarding the beliefs of Einstein, if that is what I did. I only felt that it was very important to emphasize that his ideas about God are not the least bit conventional.
In your last entry, you addressed me with the following:
"you just haven't experience the real face of the limitation of us, our science, technology and so on"
and
"Maybe on the day you experience the situation of death. Forgive me that I am saying this but it is true. People are pride because they don't know much things until they really experience the real difficult time, then they have nothing to say."
I find it very presumptuous of you to assume that I have not experienced these things. This is your cue Macross, to open your mouth and insert your foot. During the last three months I have experienced certain events which I feel may be relevant to the discussions on this site and are certainly relevant as a retort to your comments. I am not revealing these details in any way to try to gain sympathy (I have enough already). Nor did these events give rise to my agnosticism, although the events may have reinforced it. I'll give you the concise version of the story.
About three months ago, my wife (then 3 months pregnant) and I were delighted to learn that she was pregnant with identical twin boys. A week later we were informed that there was a serious difficulty. The pregnancy was diagnosed with "Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome", which means that one baby was getting too much blood and the other was not getting enough (due to a misallocation of blood vessels in the placenta). This situation was 99% deadly for both babies if nothing was done. However one treatment named "serial amniocenteses" which reduces the amniotic fluid, brings the survival rate to around 60%, although surviving babies are 50% likely to develop lifelong retardation such as cerebral palsy. After the first amniocentesis, the results were very promising and we continued to have them done about twice a week (although they are very painful for my wife, if you can visualize the fattest needle you can imagine puncturing your abdomen, through your skin, fat, muscle, and so on).
After all our efforts my wife still went into labor 3 months early (this was about three weeks ago today). We were told that if she gave birth vaginally, the babies would die for sure and that a cesarean birth would give them the best chance (although it would physically scar my wife for life). We told the doctors to do anything they had to do to give the twins the best chances, including the cesarean. They rushed her off into the operating room, and I waited.
45 minutes later, I was allowed to see my sons. Entering into the intensive neonatal area, I saw my smallest son David first. He was alive. He was laying under a heating lamp with five doctors working feverishly. He was so small the tracheal tube would barely fit down his throat. I was then led to Dustin the larger of the twins, He was also under a heating lamp with the same scurry of doctors rushing all around trying to keep him alive. I watched in horror as they pushed needles into his arms and tubes down his throat. Entering back into the room where David was, I was told he had died and I was handed his tiny body wrapped in a preemie blanket which was still absurdly oversized. I sat in a chair with my mother seated next to me and we took turns holding my son who had fought so hard to live, and yet still died. I will not try to express the emotions I felt.
Dustin, hooked up to ventilators, catheters, and IV's, survived the night of his birth. He remained in the "infant special care" unit, monitored by a host of doctors and nurses 24 hours a day. I would see him everyday, talk to him and monitor his progress. After 2 weeks of fighting for life, Dustin's heart stopped early Wednesday March 4, 1998. We rushed to the hospital at 4:30am to find nurses performing CPR on his tiny body. Once again we held a dead son in our arms saying our good-byes.
I lost two sons within 2 weeks, I think I can now claim to know the pain of death. Again I share this with you because I think that it is relevant to the discussions of religion and science, not because I am searching for sympathy (although it was very therapeutic for me to put these events into these words).
The great majority of my family, including my mother, are born-again-Christians. Literally hundreds of people were praying to God to save my sons. They were certain that a miracle would happen. The miracle never came.
Long Beach Memorial Hospital is considered to have one of the best infant special care units in the United States. I saw the machine breathing for my son, the IV lines feeding him, the antibiotics keeping him from developing an infection, the incubator keeping him warm. The doctors and nurses used methods derived from science to prolong the life of my son by two weeks. That is a fact. I saw it happen. Maybe they were not able to save his life, but they (and they alone) gave him two weeks when he would not have had a chance at 2 minutes. Maybe the methods of medicine aren't perfect, but they are better than nothing, and they're getting better every year.
What did "God" do for my sons? I saw NOTHING. Of course all the Christians I know said things like "It was God's will that they die" or "God knows best". Yet they had prayed that he would save them. Why? When Christian's (or any other religious people for that matter) don't get what they prayed for they say, "it is God's will". So then WHY PRAY AT ALL? Millions of people pray everyday for miracles, sometimes out of chance they happen, usually they don't. It's nothing but chance. Please don't tell me about something YOU got when YOU prayed for it, because I'll ask you about how many times you DIDN'T get what you prayed for and you probably won't know because Christian's don't keep track of THAT.
I was agnostic before all this happened, I was agnostic through it all, and I am agnostic after it all happened. I never prayed to Jehovah or any other god to save my son's, but I had hope. I have seen the benefit of science and the failure of prayer. I have seen the limitations of man and his technology, and it is still more than "God" did. I do not despise God, I simply don't believe that it exists. And if there is a God, I now know that it doesn't give a damn about us. I am now more agnostic (and pissed off) than ever.
Mar 16, 1998
Christian, I read your sad story and I was moved by your loss. I have a 14 month old daughter and another child on the way. All the fears the a parent experiences during a pregnancy are in my mind now, so I can begin to understand what you've been through. If you can find a book of short stories by Mark Twain with the story called "The Mysterious Stranger" in it, you may get something from it. There is a chapter where the events in a persons future are known to this supernatural being. None of the possible futures are very good for the person so in an act of charity, the supernatural being causes the death of the person. It reminded me of the tragic situation you have gone through. From the sound of it, you would rather had both boys live regardless of their potential physical handicaps. I think most parents would. But maybe a compassionate god would rather they not go through life like that. You could ask why would a god have made the situation occur in the first place. I don't have that answer, but I do remember the Christians, even though they prayed, were eaten by the lions anyway. I would never try to convince anyone there is definitely a god, but I personally hope there is one, and I hope he doesn't run things so directly and change his mind about the future depending on who and how many people prey to him. If it did work that way I don't know I would trust humans with that much influence.
Christian,
I am so sorry for your experience and thank you for telling me your story. I know you are not searching for my sympathy but I just feel sorry for your situation and I hope you will accept it.
If as you said you really know a lot of the "real Christians"(because you said they are born-again-Christians), I won't say anything to you about my religion anymore and actually most of the things I said in that web site were only my experience but not just copied from the bible or the testimonies from other Christians.
However, I understand your anger as a lot of people have in the world that they always ask a lot of questions like what you do and now I don't need to mention and answer the questions which you and they ask about, because you said you have heard how Christians and I responded to your or these people's questions.
These people like you who only believe the reality which you guys think it is that you believe only what you have seen. Well, this is a basic, simple human response to the nature because we and all our abilities are restricted in it.
But what I said that you haven't experienced the truth which is really different and individual. As I said many times before, no one (including me) easily believes in God unless he/she really experiences him.
Yes, we really don't understand......we really don't understand him why he let these things keep happening in our lives (I have my own story too but a very long story to tell -- 11 years experience, but I am so happy and rather to choose these events happened for me to go through again if I could have choices to choose at the beginning, because I really saw him....I really saw him while I went through all these difficulties.)
Yes, I can't explain my experience of God and all Christian may disappoint you that they may also can't explain this real experience to you if you only search the truth in this way but I am sure you can know more about God only through the real Christian lives.
Gospel is life, not the words to defeat others' arguments in order to cause people believe.
As I said before, we call God is God because he is such perfect that we can't think of what he thinks, so we must not understand him for sure but I must let you know that these happens are not made by God but Devil and human sin since Adam. So, as I said that God only let Devil does this and if you ask why, then I think you know the stories which I think you had heard many times from other Christians.
Also, as I said, there are a lot of things existed in the world that you only have faith in them but you can't see them, and you believe in them firmly, so this at least proves that not everything exists under human observation and within human nature.
Real Christians mainly should not pray for miracles but pray for more knowledge of God and for getting more closer to God and for becoming more likely to God and so on.
So, I and all real Christians I know do not pray for miracles because we all don't need to even we always face to many difficulties and even death. We are never afraid our close ones would pass away and even we would pass away because we know where we are going and how great if I can go there earlier!
If God answer everything we ask for, then we are God or Master and he is slave. And because our limitation in space and time, we can't see our future in the way we are walking. So the only thing we can do is to have faith that we are keep trusting him and praying him to lead our way.
Therefore, in many situations, we always pray for the wrong things because we don't and we can't know so much about what he thinks because of our limitation and of course, he wouldn't listen because he doesn't agree with us that what we want are actually good for us.
I believe you will never believe in him even though your two sons were saved, so a contradiction appeared. As you said, you only trust human science and technology, so you will only think that human science saves your sons if your sons would really be saved. And as you said, you never prayed to God to save your sons and you just hoped that human science can save them, so why could your sons be saved by God without your any bit of trusting God?
Just like: I can and I want to save your sons but you don't believe and never trust and never ask and never let me help, so how can I go to save your sons? Other people bring me to go to save your sons but you rejects and ignores me. This is only between you and me, so not because of any other people's faults. If I might try to help aggressively by kicking you out of hospital, after your sons are saved, then you will still kick me out of your place again and are keep living in the same ways as before, so you and your sons are still walking in the way of death and pain forever when they are keep growing up and walking in same wrong way with you. So what is the difference? The difference is even more worse because you will bring yourself and now also your sons to the dead end. So, I rather not to try to kick you out of your place to save your sons and your sons are now are the happiest ones as everyone is the happiest one to be with me now forever!
Please let me put God's promise in here, "Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks will receive, and anyone who seeks will find, and the door will be opened to him who knocks." Matthew 7:7-8
I am sure you will finally meet him because you are willing to search the truth which you don't know now!
And all we can know a bit but is still enough for us about God is to read the real Bible.
I stop here with the above few words and wish everyone including me to know more about the truth everyday. If the future arguments of anyone in the future are no contradiction, I will keep explain their conflicts to them.
Sorry, please let me reword my last two sentences here because of my messy wording:
And all we can know a bit but is still enough for us about God in our limited nature is to read the real Bible.
I stop here with the above few words and wish everyone including me to know more about the truth everyday. If the future arguments of anyone has no contradiction, I will keep explaining my points of view to them which is more worth to enlighten them.
Mar 16, 1998
This has been taken to a new level. I'm not quite sure how to respond. I only know that I am deeply moved by Christian's entry. I consider him a friend and wish him and his wife a peaceful trip down the road of grief that lies ahead (I know you weren't asking for sympathy Christian but I can't help it!).
My mind is racing with comforting thoughts of an after life, instant Heaven for children, resurrection, and all of the other things mentioned by religion at a time of death, but such thoughts are only a comfort to me.
Christian has cut to the core of all religion with his personal experience. He has presented the reason for faith, and at the same time, the reason for no faith. The hardest questions of humanity have just been presented. Who has the answers?
http://www.pacinter.net/users/chawman/Proof.htm
http://www.grmi.org/renewal/Richard_Riss/
http://www.stg.brown.edu/projects/hypertext/landow/victorian/darwin/darwin3.html
http://www.catholic.net/rcc/Periodicals/Issues/Darwin.html
Mar 23, 1998
One interesting thing that has developed on this page is most clear. There are obviously arguments for both sides of the God issue, I think that we have explored most of these arguments. The latest one being Christian's.
Thanks Christian for sharing that story, I found it amazing that you remain agnostic through that whole ordeal. (going along with your Einstein quotes) most people would convert quickly to religion for fear of what happens after death. If it isn't for a situation like Christian's (in hopes that his sons would be in heaven) then for fear of their own death (as they get older). I am so glad that you look
at life the way you do Christian, and I wish you luck. As I do to all people
More to the point though, it seems that most people believe one way or the other. God or no, they all have arguments for their opinions. The interesting thing is... and I have had experiences throughout my life (including the last couple of days) to back this up... that most people who are agnostic, if they could be convinced of the existence of god, any god or the god as it is commonly referred to... would believe in god. It can't be proven though, so we don't go through with it. People that believe in god however approach the situation differently (please excuse the generalizations here, I know I'm making them) They tend to think... that perhaps they wouldn't believe in god if he could be proven not to exist... but, they continue believing in god even though it can be proven that he/she doesn't necessarily exist. So it remains to be a completely irrational belief based on the word of man.
I don't want all of you to think that I can't stop harping on the existence of god. But it seems to be the reoccurring theme here
Hi everyone, if you don't mind, may I ask what your meaning and value of life is.
kljlkj lkjlkj
Apr 7, 1998
There is another web site that is having this same conversation. It's "fresh". At the risk of never hearing from you again here it is: http://daystarcom.org/index.html
Apr 10, 1998
O.K. so first of all I got to tell all of you that I don't believe in any god, or any supernatural phenomenon. But I've recently seen the movie Contact and I now think that science and religion don't work together. I'm not a theology expert, I'M only 16 years old, but I got my own opinion.
In the film, Mr. Drumlin has been chosen to represent human race when meeting aliens, but how do you want him to represent humanity when 90% of it doesn't have the same religion as him? Also in that film when they hear about aliens, they immediately think of apocalypse, but why they do? I think that it's religion that started all this fear of aliens, and it has to cease. I repeat it I'm not an expert, but this was my opinion.
Science always was, Religion was invented by us
everyone and everything that will ever be can be
explained through science including religion.
It is very easy to explain the world around us
through religion it is much harder through science
in the end though I strongly believe that science
will explain everything including why we humans resort
to religion.
Many thousands of years ago when thunder and lightning
could not be explained it was easy and comforting to say
the gods are responsible this metaphorically speaking
was the birth of religion, the easy way to account for why
everything happens. We humans still believe in demons, dragons,
witches..etc religion falls into this category and I believe
that as generations come and go and science advances our minds
will open fully and religion will be a thing of the past just
as tooth fairies and monsters in the closets was left in our
past as children when we grew to know better.
Apr 14, 1998
Religion: As others have said obstructs science evolution.
God : A separate issue that I think we shall believe in, unless we have
found out the way matter was originated before the big bang.
Science : I feel no contradiction between the two notions of GOD and
Science. The more humanity expands his ocean of knowledge,
the closer would be to GOD. You will say what happens when humanity
reaches to GOD ? I would say some good things has to happen then. may be
no more wars, no more diversions,...
If one believes in random creation of life, that is not scientifically
proved yet, It would not that easy to imagine the early origination of
matter to be random too. At the same time I do not think God would be
jelous of human science evolution.
Apr 15, 1998
First of all, what ever the bible has in it is the truth and I think that everybody is in agreement on that.
and if anybody can find in the bible that their is aliens in the bible. I will believe the whole heartedly.
and if there is life in outer space it is most-likely microscopic.
religion and science are two different things it would be like mixing water with oil.
Apr 19, 1998
I've been stirring the pot on that other site (http://daystarcom.org/index.html). I know this is mostly a repeat of what I've said here earlier but I thought I would put my comments on both sites. If you want to respond feel free to do it anywhere just note that the other site will delete you after a few weeks. Hear it is:
It is a cop out to say that the Bible is figurative when it does not agree with science. I hope not to drag a dead horse but I'll take the chance. I can't think of a stronger faith based belief than to believe what a hand full of people wrote thousands of years ago about the resurrection. I learned in junior Sunday school that faith means believing without seeing and I could back that with lots of scriptural reference. If one requires evidence to believe in the resurrection, or in any God for that matter, they deny faith. In the case of Christianity they deny Christ. Faith is the foundation of Christianity and all other religion. I stated a couple of weeks ago that science and religion were not quite compatible, I'll elaborate: Religion answers spiritual questions and science answers physical ones. They barely intersect. Science doesn't care about the state of our spirits after death or before birth and that's because it can't care about it, those concepts don't fit in science. Science doesn't care about a personal relationship with Deity nor does it consider questions of morality. It is not supposed to, it does not need to. Science looks at the physical universe because that's all it can look at. Science can't have faith. It can make assumptions, it can make educated guesses and then it can verify theory with physical evidence but it can't have faith. Religion must have faith.
Apr 21, 1998
What is faith but a cop-out? An irrational justification for believing something
that you have no reason to believe. I agree, science has no place for that.
Apr 21, 1998
Ouch Daniel, that stings, but I see what you mean.
Apr 25, 1998
Einstein, when asked about his religion is said to have replied
"Mosaic". An interesting, and probably deliberately cryptic response.
Another quote comes to mind, this one from Howard Stern. From
Einstein to the King of The Media, how do you like that? Heh. But anyway,
Stern says: "I'm not just against Christianity; All religions sicken
me. The pope walking down the Street in the Vatican is no different
from an African with his face painted white praying to a rock." From
a scientific view point the existence of God is obviously doubtful,
no evidence, and I don't believe in faith without evidence. Galileo,
when trying to share his revolutionary discoveries was thrown in jail
by the Church, look what Religion (not god, religion, there is a difference
) did for him! When I tell friends this, they reply "But that was
the Catholics" As if that mattered. What kind of a deity threatens
its minions with eternal damnation for disbelief in it? In the book(
I've yet to see the movie, but I did read the book) Ellie asks why god didn't state something like there is motion in the smallest grain of sand.
And why not? God did miracles to provoke belief then, why not now? And
please don't say miracles happen every day.. I don't count babies being
born as miracles: I passed biology and sex-ed.
It is seemed like everyone not willing to say what their meaning and value of life is. Maybe, they still do not know or are not sure what it is.
So, there are too many things which are unknown to us, such as what we are, why we are here, and the rest of W5, etc.
And we are so sure that there are too many things cannot be either proved and justified by anyone of us but we do strongly, firmly believe them, like everything in humanity, etc. How can we say that, "An irrational justification for believing something that you have no reason to believe" by only using one side of our brain to calculate the unknown questions we have in this universe(Brain -- one side is rational and another side is sensational). Does it more make sense if we use both sides of our brain to think of and to experience the universe(even we could only use about 15% of its whole)? Rather than being a low level non-human robot!
We all believe loves, feelings, experiences, desires and so on without any reasons and scientific proofs. How could we justify God's existence by any of these tools and ignore its possibility if we could not prove it by these tools since we could believe everything in humanity without any rational justification?
This is a big contradiction on everyone here who does not believe that God exists!
Remember, we all are so sure that too many things are unknown to us and too many things could not justified by rational reasons and scientific proofs but we all believe them. But most of us ignore the possibility of God's existence subjectively without any human thinking, senses, experiences who act as the robots rather than act as the human beings!
But there is no surprise that many of us do not believe that God exists because this is the human sinful nature who are only walking toward the way which is opposite to God's way. Therefore, the only way they can go and the only thing they can do is to responsible for what they had chose to go and to do if they still do not seek the real, absolute truth and do not believe in him and do not accept him by the end of the earth.
Apr 27, 1998
Isn't there scientific proof for emotions and sensations?
If not proof, how about reason? I think so. It's all natural
selection.
Apr 27, 1998
Just wanted to make a comment about what Keith said about faith. Faith without evidence is blind faith. True faith, is trust in the evidence which you have. I don't exercise any blind faith, but I have been told in priesthood blessings that I have great faith. (I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). Anything which I have faith in, is because I have evidence for it. You and I know that the Holy Ghost is the strongest evidence - were it not for that witness, I wouldn't just blindly believe things because I want to. I want to know what it is true, not just have faith in what I want to. The non-LDS on this board probably won't understand about the witness of the Holy Ghost, and many Latter-day Saints don't even understand it as they should! Suffice it to say, there is an evidence that can be given that is stronger than any evidence for anything that you have found before, I never ask anyone to blindly believe me on this, I simply say that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can tell you how to find this evidence, and once you have it, you'll KNOW it. Its not "faith", you receive actually overpowering evidence, then you simply exercise faith in that evidence in your life - that is true faith - not blindly accepting things that you want to believe, but trusting in the evidence that is true. Also, for those who are unfamiliar with Latter-day Saint beliefs, we do not believe that God sends anyone to hell for not believing in Him - neither do we believe that He exercises wrath on people out of some imperfect sense of anger. We believe in a perfect God, who will judge all mankind according to the desires of their hearts, and how they acted based on what they understood in life. Nobody is ever damned for not knowing the right thing to do - the only people who will dwell in an eternal hell are those who desire to dwell there. Our beliefs are considered heretical by most other Christian religions, but they may make much more sense to atheists and agnostics, because they are the true teachings of Jesus Christ, without 2,000 years for imperfections to creep into the doctrine that He taught. And best of all - our doctrines come with an iron-clad guarantee, that you may pray to God and He will answer you with absolute evidence. If you're interested in finding out more, go to www.lds.org or send me an email.