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Post by
woohaa
@asakawa - i don't think anything is wrong. For me i was raised with many different beliefs pushing me in different directions. However, it wasn't a gap or space that brought me to God, but more a search for answers. Answers to questions no one could answer for me. To kind of shed light on that i'll tell you alittle about my story.
When i was 12 yrs old i got sick...not cancer or anything like that but i got a stomach flu that almost killed me. I lost about 18% of my body weight and, for lack of a better word, threw up everything that i tried to get down. I was bed ridden for about 3 months and it took about 2 years to fully recover. However, even after fully recovered i was left with a rare eating condition that could not be fixed or cured. This eating condition can cause severe pain from just one bite of food or a drink of water. It happens at random and only when i eat. On a scale of 1-10 the pain was about a 9.
So began my search...my search for why this happened to me. I had many church members tell me that it was the devil that did this to me. I had some family members tell me that it was because i wasn't right with God. I didn't understand and i came to the conclusion that if there was a god that he not only allowed it to happen he probably did it himself. I also decided that if there is a god he must hate me. I could come up with no other answer other then he must hate me. Therefore, i hated him.
For the next 6 years i lived in constant fear that the next bite i took would cause unimaginable pain. Imagine living life and everytime you did something as normal as eating. You'd be put through pain so severe that cutting your wrist or jumping off a building seemed like less pain. Luckily something kept me from reaching that point. As i got older i learned to appreciate things more then most. I realized then that before then i hadn't appreciated anything my family did for me. I was spoiled...maybe not as bad as some but nonetheless i was spoiled. I realized then that God was trying to tell me something and had been for a long time. I just kept ignoring him.
I still have the eating condition, and sometimes i still hate him. But I know deep down that had i not went through what i did i wouldn't be who i am today.
Now i'm not saying that every bad thing has some sort of silver lining or lesson to be learned behind it. I'm just speaking from my own experience and how i came to find God. I think had that never happened to me i would probably not believe in God or atleast i wouldn't have the relationship that i do have. I think that if you don't feel something missing in your life then that's perfectly fine. I didn't feel that empty space i just wanted to understand...
Post by
Sas148
Thank you for sharing your story woohaa. Could you perhaps explain how God has helped you understand? I mean, what exactly makes you feel like you found him? What changed? Could your appreciation for things stem from the fact that you suffer so badly from something everyone else does without a second thought; thereby making you appreciate other mundane things more than the average person? I'd just like to understand how it goes from "I am who I am today because of this unfortunate condition I have, but I am who I am because of what I've done with my life," to "I am who I am because God gave me this unfortunate condition that has allowed me to appreciate my family and life more than if I hadn't been given this condition." If the latter is what you believe, why couldn't God have done this in a less physically painful way? I just don't understand the logic.
I hope that all came out right, these are very genuine questions.(##RESPBREAK##)8##DELIM##sas148##DELIM##
Post by
168916
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
asakawa
As for the person who reported you for asking a question: That's idiotic lol; really, it is.
Oh, no, I didn't mention it in order to provoke that reaction. I just meant that what I say may be misconstrued and I wanted to make sure that didn't happen again.
Woohaa, I'd echo Sas's thanks for sharing and also his query about arriving at religion from the experience. I understand that it's a neat way to make an unbearable situation easier to abide and to find purpose in otherwise meaningless suffering but it still seems a leap away from logic to me.
Post by
Gone
I really dont understand Atheism, and I know a lot of Atheists say the same thing about religion. And thats not to say that I dont understand how somebody could not believe in God or the supernatural. But how can anybody be so sure theres nothing out there?
I mean I have a lot of friends who are agnostic, they dont beleieve in any one God or religion, but they dont discount the idea that there could be something out there, and that I understand. I just dont understand where this ironclad belief in nothing supernatural comes from.
I mean a lot of people say its about logic or reasoning, but isnt that kind of narrow minded? I mean we discover new things every day, whos to say that in 100 years we wont have a completley new understanding of the laws of physics and the natural universe than we do now?
Idk is it really so out there to think that there are things in the universe beyond what we humans are capable of understanding with our own minds/tools/logic?
Post by
Lombax
I really dont understand Atheism, and I know a lot of Atheists say the same thing about religion. And thats not to say that I dont understand how somebody could not believe in God or the supernatural. But how can anybody be so sure theres nothing out there?
I'm a agnostic atheist, I don't belive that there's a god but I realize that it can exist even if the chances are slim.
Post by
Atik
But how can anybody be so sure theres nothing out there?
I just simply can't fathom the thought of something I would consider a 'god'. (Using the power levels we see in most monotheistic gods) The idea of something that both exists in our universe, and yet is wildly more powerful than the entire thing, is simply ridiculous to me.
Anything less powerful, like the Greek gods or whatever, really aren't gods to me. They're extremely powerful beings that I would rather not get mad, but they're certainly not some divine force that deserves worship.
As for the "There's nothing out there" bit; I would like to think that aliens are real, and I hope they are out there. If they are advanced enough that some people want to call them gods? Go for it, but I'm not going to consider them so.
Idk is it really so out there to think that there are things in the universe beyond what we humans are capable of understanding with our own minds/tools/logic?
I find that perfectly reasonable to think. The universe itself is hardly understandable to us. But that doesn't mean that divine beings deserving of worship exist; because I really don't think they do.
Post by
240140
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
204878
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Gone
I just simply
can't fathom
the thought of something I would consider a 'god'.
See thats what Im saying. I feel like a lot of people consider something impossible, just because it goes beyond the bounds of what the human mind can process. I feel like being the domminant and by far the most intelligent species on our planet limits our ability to be open minded. We assume that our idea of what the laws of physics means is ironclad, and while tehre are things we dont know, its not because our minds simply cant process the information.
I was having this debate with a friend of mine the other day, we werent talking about God per say, but we were talking about the idea of omnipotence. He was saying that true omnipotence is a paradox, and impossible because for true omnipotence one would have to have no limitations at all.
For example if tehre was an omnipotent God, could he create an object that he couldnt lift? If hes not capable of creating this object than that means hes not omnipotent, and if he cant lift an object that also means hes not omnipotent. So he says the whole idea is a paradox.
My opinion was that if there was an omnipotent being it could be possible for him to create this object, have it be truly unliftable, even by him, and still lift it. Yes that sounds ridiculas, and illogical. But thats by our own human deffinition of logic. I was saying that if an omnipotent being existed, it would be beyond the boundries of physics, looking at that with our own limited human logic would be like a bactrium trying to figure out a super computer.
Didnt mean to make that so long winded, and Im not trying to argue any one side or another. My whole thing is just that I feel like a lot of people assume that our basic idea of the natural laws of the universe and logic, and physics, is unshakable, and I dont think thats the case. I think its very possible that are minds are just limited and we cant truly process everything that has the potential to be out there.
Post by
OverZealous
But how can anybody be so sure theres nothing out there?
You can't. Not with complete certainty. Just as you can't be sure there actually is anything out there.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
I don't understand people who are atheists, and vicious about it. It's not all of them or even most of them, to be sure, but some people get outright offended/disgusted with people who are religious, regardless of whether that person is intrusive and pushy with their religion, or barely even mentions it. Very often, they seem to be content to ignore all rules about proper behavior and just say the most condescending, nasty, mean-spirited things to people who are religious (again, even if they don't practice their religion in a way that affects other people). These will be the same people who will go on a righteous crusade against people who discriminate or treat poorly people based on race, piercings, tattoos, ethnicity, gender, etc. They'll come to the defense of people who have radically non-mainstream ideas about philosophy, diet, dress code, profanity, etc. But all of their respect for the right to say and do what you want, as long and you don't affect other people, seems to go out the window when God comes up.
I don't think they're the only ones. I've see otherwise seemingly well-mannered religious people turn into spiteful, nasty creatures when the topic of other religions, homosexuality and atheism come up, as though they have the right to not treat anyone in those classifications as human beings anymore. It's really sad on both sides. But I have a better understanding of that (from a logical standpoint), which is a result of them fearing hell and believing that God wants them to act that way, than I do people who don't believe that what you believe has any affect at all, but are just as militant about berating people who don't believe what they do.
Post by
Atik
I feel like being the domminant and by far the most intelligent species on our planet limits our ability to be open minded
I am a firm beleiver that we are neither of those things.
Post by
Gone
I feel like being the domminant and by far the most intelligent species
on our planet
limits our ability to be open minded
I am a firm beleiver that we are neither of those things.
What do you think dominates this planet more than humans? Or is more intelligent on our planet?
Post by
Atik
I feel like being the domminant and by far the most intelligent species
on our planet
limits our ability to be open minded
I am a firm believer that we are neither of those things.
What do you think dominates this planet more than humans? Or is more intelligent on our planet?
There is no dominate creature on our planet, as far as I am concerned. Humans build homes and cities, true, but so do bees and other creatures.
As for intelligence? You have no way to prove to me that other species are not sentient in their own ways, or possess an intelligence we just can't see.
I don't think humans are anything special.
Post by
Sas148
Idk is it really so out there to think that there are things in the universe beyond what we humans are capable of understanding with our own minds/tools/logic?
Personally I think it's entirely possible. But, I'm not going to say there is or isn't with any certainty. Instead, I lean towards what, in my opinion, is more likely. In this case, that no such being exists.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
@Atik- Are you a vegetarian, then?
Post by
Atik
@Atik- Are you a vegetarian, then?
No, as humans are omnivorous. So I go ahead and eat meat and plants.
Post by
ElhonnaDS
Ok. But you wouldn't have a problem with people eating other humans, then, right?
Post by
Gone
on our planet, as far as I am concerned. Humans build homes and cities, true, but so do bees and other creatures.
If aliens landed on this planet tomorrow, who do you think they would try to make contact with, us? Or bees?
We build our homes and cities where we please. If we wanted to demolish a forrest and build our city there, then none of the animals could do anything to stop us. On the same hand theres no animal on this planet that we adapt to or avoid as a species.
We manipulate animals and keep them as pets, in zoos, study them, breed them, eat them, protect them, use them. We are at the top of every food chain, and theres no other species that preys on us (isolated incidends aside, beat attacks, etc.) with the possible exception of viruses and such that we dont yet have a cure for. If we wanted to we could wipe every living thing off of this planet.
Weve spread to basically every corner of the planet, we go where we please and do as we choose, and animals as a species have no way of stopping or even effecting us. There is no animal that has a larger effect or controll over its enviorment than we do. We are the dominant species on the planet, that isnt even up for debate.
As for intelligence? You have no way to prove to me that other species are not sentient in their own ways, or possess an intelligence we just can't see.
Sentient? Of course they are. Animals have as many thoughts and fears and hopes as we do. And of course they posses intelligence, they function dont they?
But do I think that they can all secretly talk build things like some Pixar movie? No. There are animals like apes and dolphins that posses a greater degree of intelligence than others, but they dont come close, as a species, to what human beings are capable of.
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