Heaven is 'a fairy story,' scientist Stephen Hawking says..

[Icepick]

Yes, exactly. That was partly my point. But that same blind faith is used as the basis for believing in the truth of God, Jesus, the Bible and all the rest of the Christian theology.

You really only have 2 choices of interpretation of the Bible and it's accuracy and truth. And these 2 choices would include even a person who is an unbeliever in the doctrines as literal.

You accept the whole convoluted and frequently contradictory mess as literal truth based on blind faith. While in actuality, you are cherry picking what parts to believe and form a basis for a religion or denomination. Because you cannot reconcile many old and new Testament contradictory religious ideals otherwise. And remember that the church decided hundreds of years ago what books to include in the Bible as you mostly see it today.

Or instead you interpret the entire thing as a work of allegorical fiction loosely based on some historical facts and cobbled together from disparate sources and older reinterpreted stories and consider it more of a guidebook to living a spiritual life rather than as an actual passport to an organized religion such as Christianity and it's many variations.

And note the second choice does not necessarily imply a lack of inspired divinity by the writers, but it also does not agree with the premise of blind faith to support it or the literal nature of it as a completely factual spiritual narrative and document, either.

For example, I am not saying that Jesus did not necessarily exist. But what I am saying is that what was written about him was not put down to parchment until many hours, days, months and years after it happened, and done in retrospect and hindsight. And the authors recollections were certainly tainted to some degree to fit their spiritual ideas, too. I seriously doubt two thousand years ago that anyone had stenographers following them around constantly while writing down everything they said verbatim. And these observations are certainly accurate for all the stories in the Bible, whether you believe in it, or not.

Have you ever read the Bible? The entire point of the Bible just went way over your head. It's not meant to be taken literally. It's a collection of stories that were told to explain the unexplainable. It was meant to be a guide for living a fulfilling life. The problem is that it was originally written from the perspective of culture as it was thousands of years ago. Then it was morphed and changed to suit the needs of the elites of changing societies. That's why it's difficult for people to relate to it now. Nowhere was the Bible, itself, ever meant to be a means to prove the existence of God.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Damn there's a lot of religion haters here...

You all choose to believe in the words of Mr Hawking and a handful of others who agree with him, you have "faith" that they are correct and true without seeing first-hand and witnessing what they claim.

Others choose to believe in the words of men who lived long ago and the stories they told and have been passed down for thousands of years, they have "faith" that they are correct and true without seeing it first-hand as well.

Some choose science as their "religion" and others choose a religion, and there's wackos on both sides of the fence and neither has all the answers to every question, though religions love to just trust in God.

If the religious that live their lives well are wrong then when they die and nothing happens, well, nothing happens.

If the scientists who deny it all die and are wrong, well, oops...

Either way it shouldn't be such a big damn deal, get over yourselves and let everyone live their lives the way they want, sorry if some of you are butt-hurt that people tried to "save your souls" at some point in your life, build a bridge for gods sake, being an ass and calling people who have faith idiots is just childish.

Damn, another person who thinks they have a valid opinion but just proves they can't even use basic logic correctly.

The fact that you're comparing the two as such just shows how incredibly naive you are. There's actually a ton of information that you can "witness" that show the Big Bang and various phenomena that you seemingly think is faith-based. Whereas there's precisely nothing providing evidence that God made the Earth and humans (in his image) while simultaneously there being a ton of evidence that all of that was just made up by men. But yeah, no reason at all that people shouldn't feel that the latter is every bit as right as the former.

You're wrong, and this is something that seemingly needs to be constantly pointed out to religious people. You don't "choose" science, its not a belief, and by its very nature it is not faith based. The fact that you seemingly think that logically its all the same just is an insult to anything with cognitive thought.

And there is a major problem. Living well according to many religions involves some pretty heinous things. I couldn't care less how things turn out when dead, its what they're doing while alive that's the issue.

Your last paragraph is so mind-numbingly contradictory of reality that its not even worth addressing. Granted, that's apparently par for the course for you, but I'm going to skip it all the same.

 

[Jeff7]

Have you ever read the Bible? The entire point of the Bible just went way over your head. It's not meant to be taken literally. It's a collection of stories that were told to explain the unexplainable. It was meant to be a guide for living a fulfilling life. The problem is that it was originally written from the perspective of culture as it was thousands of years ago. Then it was morphed and changed to suit the needs of the elites of changing societies. That's why it's difficult for people to relate to it now. Nowhere was the Bible, itself, ever meant to be a means to prove the existence of God.

And that is of course your own interpretation of it. When people show up at the door to preach their religion, they have a nasty habit of citing biblical passages as evidence of God's existence, while at the same time validating the Bible by saying it's God's word. Explaining circular reasoning is typically futile.

 

[Ninjahedge]

Trying to keep an eye on you,
Like a hurt, lost and blind fool,
Fool...

Oh no I've said too much.
I haven't said enough......

 

[Blackjack200]

Trying to keep an eye on you,
Like a hurt, lost and blind fool,
Fool...

Oh no I've said too much.
I haven't said enough......

That's great, it starts with-annn earth. quake.
birdsandsnakes and aeroplanes
(Lenny Bruce is not afraid)

 

[Ninjahedge]

You REMembered!