Topic: Health and Religion - page 42. (Read 210900 times)

It may be true that religion makes people happy because it gives you an alternative to death, however, it is an illusion, you will eventually die and there will be no heaven, no after life, no purpose, no meaning only emptiness, that is life, no that is special, we are really just something going and no purpose. Knowing this fact would be of no use to the happiness of anybody but apart from feeling it is still the truth

We all live by faith. To a great extent it is your choice regarding which faith you attempt to have. Examine, extensively, whatever it is that maintains your faith, and the truth of the direction you want your faith to move in. Make sure it is correct. That is the best you can do.

The answer to this question is detailed in some ways.

1. All people have a natural knowledge of the real God. This knowledge isn't complete. But it exists.
2. I don't know that I would have ever found the important truth about God in Islamic countries.
3. I don't know that I would have ever stepped out of wrong faith, into the proof of God's existence in Islamic countries.
4. It is by God's mercy that I am what I am regarding God, and regarding most of my life.
5. Consider that in the past, many of the Arab counties contributed greatly to the basic sciences of math and astronomy. The knowledge of coming to see the truth about God still exists there. Note that even the Koran talks briefly about Jesus, and makes reference to the Bible, and to the religion of the Jews. Knowledge of the real God is penetrating through the false gods even to Islam and Muslims... if only they would use their heads and recognize it.

Praise and thanks to God that He found it good and right to make it easy on me to find Him, by placing me in a situation where I have some of the best info about God. I don't understand how and why this works the way it does.



EDIT: My ability to understand these things, shows how religion and my mental health work together. But, if I am wrong, and if you can show that I am nuts, then your mental health is being impacted by what you believe, your religion.

Let me ask you something badecker, imagine you were born in a heavy islamic country, imagine that you never leave the country either. How certain are you that you would have found out that the ''real god'' is the god from the bible? 1%? Less?

Believing in God doesn't mean believing that He exists. We know that He exists simply by observing nature, or when we attempt to set ourselves up as gods by trying to believe that God doesn't exist. Believing in God is believing in the things that He tells us in the Bible. Such faith is using reason, basing faith on Bible and God knowledge. Such is reasonable way more than atheism, which tries to force belief in atheism on the so-called atheist while the so-called atheist knows for a fact that God might exist.

"Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." The most important faith in this life is saving faith... Jesus salvation faith. It is found through the Bible. Then in Heaven, faith will be increased because we will see some of the results of our faith, and we will understand more of the Word of God, making our faith in the rest of it grow.

The atheists, like everyone else, don't know for a fact what is going to happen in the next second. We all live by faith. To a great extent it is your choice regarding which faith you attempt to have. Examine, extensively, whatever it is that maintains your faith, and the truth of the direction you want your faith to move in. Make sure it is correct. That is the best you can do.

Yes he does otherwise you wouldn't need to believe in god to go to heaven. In fact atheists should go to heaven instead of theists because they are the ones using reason to find out the truth. Unlike theists that believe what they are told without ever trying to find proof or evidence.

How do you train yourself to use ''faith'' exactly? Faith: ''strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof'' Every baptist has faith in his religion just like every Catholic or orthodox or muslim or christian. They all have faith in different things and yet not all of them can be right, clearly faith is not working, is it? How would we ever know which one is correct if we are only using faith? Don't you see how stupid that is?

God doesn't place more emphasis on blind faith than on reason. If God did this, He would have not created the universe. Rather, he would have created a bunch of non-embodied spirits, and then let them attempt to figure out some form of body on their own by faith alone... which they couldn't have done because of their lack of imagination.

All of the universe exists to train people to use their faith to make things happen like God does. But people are such infants that it will take them most or all of eternity to figure out how to use faith, even though they have the abundant examples of the universe. The examples of the universe are the things that make for visible faith rather than blind faith.

''Maybe the most important part of the process is the journey towards the answer.'' Atheists and non believers seem to care more about the journey than religious people who accept everything said in the bible without any question. ''It may appears that it would be better if the answer was simply provided for us in clear irrefutable and irresistible terms but that may not be true.'' I don't really see why not. If I want to convince my daughter that I'm alive and I exist, isn't the best way to just do it? Why would god put more weight on blind faith instead of reason, the answer is simple, he doesn't, religions and god are a fraud, that's why I can come up with 20 different questions that you can't answer, the bible can't answer and yet I'm supposed to somehow just trust god, right? Nah.

The work of science, religion is not. When did the prayer or god heal the amputee or the blind these days? Do religious people go to the hospital when they are sick or do they just pray to God? Where are all the progress or discoveries based on the Bible? Why the Bible is really useless and does not help in any progress. Drugs on the other hand really work and so do all the other sciences. Your opinion is that evolution is a hoax, but fortunately your opinion does not mean whether the work is successful or not and the work of evolution, the Bible does not.

After several pages of back and forth we are getting into some very deep questions. With that said I will share my incomplete and partial thoughts.

I agree with you in part on point #3. An omnipotent being would certainly not need worship of any kind. The need to the degree it exists would go entirely in the other direction.

I do not claim know the answer to #2 and #4. I think they logically follow from the concept of heaven but any details are certainly far beyond my understanding. The answer may have something to do with willingly surrendering ones free will to God what Rabbi Moishe described above as freedom from choice. The answer may also have something to to with genuinely seeking redemption, salvation, and forgiveness followed by some form of divine purification. There are also less optimistic possibilities. I do not know.

No one does only good all of their life or at least no one I have ever met. What we have instead is varying degrees of corruption. The worst of us can be thought of as pig like wallowing gleefully and deliberately into deep cesspools their bodies and faces covered with layer upon layer of filth caked into solid sheets covering even their eyes.

The very best of us can be thought of as men walking through such a mud pit trying desperately to wipe the splashing mud out of their eyes shaking it off whenever possible and always looking for the firmer ground. Striving for cleanliness but objectively still filthy.

What has to change before either of these two could be given free access to a pristine home?

It may appears that it would be better if the answer was simply provided for us in clear irrefutable and irresistible terms but that may not be true. Maybe the most important part of the process is the journey towards the answer.

If I set up a shower outside of my home which of the two men could I allow free access inside? One, both, or none?

See that's the problem, if God is real and the only proof left for his existence is a book, I would expect that book to have something different from other books like explaining in detail how we have free will or the rules of heaven, instead you have catholics, baptists, orthodox and a ton more, interpreting the book their own way.

1. If that's really the case that also means all kind of rapists, murderers are given that chance too and you find yourself in heaven with all of them, you did good all your life and they didn't and yet you are in the same place, what was the point of life on earth anyways then? Why is this not clearly explained in the bible?

2. No it doesn't. The point is, how is god going to prevent humans from committing sin in heaven, it is not explained in the bible as usual.

3. A god omnipotent and all powerful certainly would not care or need to be worshiped at all.

4. Although you can fully repent, how can god prevent the person from committing a sin afterwards.

Different religion and different traditions making your health better or harm you. At my opinion first of all everyone should think about consiquences before doing religion stuff.

Now I know the reason why some people with high IQs become atheist.  Scientist who were really intelligent do not believe the existence of our Almighty God, Einstein is exception.  They became rebellious sometimes, high egos with super high confidence that they do not believe that their someone who is behind all the  things we have on Earth.  And because of thinking their superiority, they do almost what they want.  They abused their health compared to people who believes to the existence of God.  These people values their lives as they know that our body is the temple of Christ.  Thus, people who believes God values their life.  They are mostly the contented person and they are mostly the happy beings.

The concept of how to reconcile free will and God is a deep one. Are you really interested in exploring this or are you just looking for areas of complexity so you can quickly dismiss the entire matter as "disturbing" or "not meaningful"?

If you are interested in this topic it requires some contemplation it as it is one of the deeper theological challenges.

Here is a lengthy and a short source of information.

The first source is a long video by Rabbi Moishe New. He goes into great depth on the topic of Free Choice, Determinism, and God's Knowledge.

Do We Really Have Free Will?
https://www.chabad.org/multimedia/media_cdo/aid/1994469/jewish/Do-We-Really-Have-Free-Will.htm

A shorter answer assuming you lack the time to watch the video can be found in the comments section below that video. Here is comment by Ruth Housman sums it up well.

"The end point of the debate, is to reach a point in which it isn't a debatable question, because one's WILL then, in terms of relinquishment of free will, is identical to the Will of the Creator, so one freely gives up one's free will for the sake of the story that brought the individual forward, toward the knowledge that One ness is the pervasive force in the universe and that God controls not part but the entire story. Every soul has a journey and every detail of that journey is, paradoxically "known" within a framework that on this "plane" feels like free will. The journey of soul, that does require movement forward, as in rejecting evil inclination, brings one to the final realization it always was, All God."

In regards to your critiques.

1. Hopefully, those who have erred in life and beliefs (by definition basically all of us) will be given the opportunity to rectify ourselves after death if we fail to do so in life. We do not have definitive sources knowledge of this currently and theological beliefs vary.

2. Envisioning humans as mindless robots in heaven misunderstands free will see the video lecture above.

3 and 5. What could be more meaningful then honoring the creator and sustainer of the entire universe?

4. If an individual truly repents of a horrific sin and crime they not only reject the sin. They are horrified by it, wish they had never done it, would never do it again, and attempt to make a genuine and full amends for the harm they did. As evil cannot exists in heaven true repentance of all sin would seem a necessary prerequisite.