But the thing is it takes more than belief to be a Christian. The Bible states that even the demons believe in God and shudder at the thought.

 

Java's right. Just believing isn't enough.

And the founding fathers of this country were speaking of the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus. The same God that I pray to and have faith in. George Washington wrote several published journals on Christianity. America was founded on those who fled from the Church of England and chose to be free in their own church and away from legal oppression. They felt you should have freedom to worship, and the Constitution only speaks of Government not being able to restrict anybody to the practice of their beliefs or worship. Those rights stop where they interfere with somebody elses rights (such as carrying out genocide or killing others, even if your faith allows it, your rights stop where they interfere with the rights of others).

 

I played Doom 1 and 3 for about 8 hours today.

Satan sucks.

laugh.gif

 

I could talk for hours about Satan. wink1.gif but I'll save that for another time.

 

that is very untrue majik, if you read up on the supposed proofs of inconsistant dating you will see that the same instances are recycled and each time explained, these "unreliable" results are usually resulted by contamination or poor experimentation. poor experimentation typically results from using the wrong test method to date an object. Carbon dating cant be used to date items in the millions of years category such as the Fossils of Dinosoars, its way out of its accuracy range, radiocarbon(14c) only dates remains up to 45,000 years old, also you cant use radiocarbon to date rocks or fossils anyway. you need to use different dating techniques such as K-Ag, but thats besides the point. When properly conducted with the appropriate tester, dating methods arent inconsistant and unreliable as you stated.

i would be interested to see your reports that include the proper amount of evidence to disprove Dating, and im curious what do you believe about the existance of dinosaurs?

 

^^Alex good post at 2:30aM man

I agree with Redz, i like what he said about the bibl being created by people who wanted to control havoc during the early ages. Although some pretty weird things happen in the world often times, i dont belive there is some superficious being above us all. I generaly lean towords the evolutionary thoery over religion. I am vary understanding and nice to extreamly religious people. Sometimes they do tick me off to be abit honest, when they mention jesus 300 times in a two minute converstation. Also like when they say everything is religions fault. Like two days ago it kept me from getting laid; I got into a big fight with my gf cuz i wasnet being sympathetic about the pope's daeth, im like "WTF!?" She made it such a huge deal that I wasent mourning him and that he was an inspiration to the chatlic church etc. She is a deep orthodox roman chathlic, and im roman cathlic but idont practice it much, last time i went to church was aprx. 1 year ago when i went for a confermation. But im vary understanding of other religions, i work for a Jew, a Orthodx Jew, fridays i work shroter days cuz hes gotta be home by sundown, he swears like a sailor, and he wears his yahmuka, and those litle strings haninging from under his shirt and all that stuff. But hes sooo cool, me and my 2 co-workers totaly get along with him realy well, only rule is we cant use the kosher microwave lol, but he bought us our own microwave heh, lol, naw hes realy cool, and lioke thers never been a conflict of intrerset even with the diferances in religion.

Whew thats a mouthfull for me, heh, well anyway, I think this post shows also that im not as much of a moron i make myself in other parts of the forums, now... WERD

 

Carbon Dating was first developed in the late 1940's, early 1950's, yet we use it to "date" objects as being thousands of years old. How can we possibly know how old something actually is to be able to test whether or not our "dating" is at all accurate? We have to have something to test it against.

I do believe the dinosaurs existed. I can't dispute that, and have no reason to. It has been considered that the Dinosaurs died from a large flood. If you want to talk about Science, several studies back up proof of a global flood. For those who believe Evolutionary Theory, is there any proof of transformation from one to another? From marine life to land? (fish with legs... any proof of Ape to Human?) With no proof available, you must have FAITH to believe it is true. My faith just happens to lie in a different belief.

"carbon-14 dating rests on two simple assumptions. They are obviously assuming the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere has always been constant, and its’ rate of decay has always been constant. Neither of these assumptions is provable or reasonable."
-Taken from Dr. Kent Hovind

The "assumptions" mentioned above are located in TONS of Carbon Dating articles. You have to make a series of assumptions for the Carbon Dating accuracy to be true. Assumptions require FAITH that it is true. Some have FAITH in Science (which is always changing) but I choose to have FAITH in something else, which has proven to stand the test of time.

http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/5/5/7/1
Carbon clock could show the wrong time - www.PhysicsWeb.org

Carbon Dating is one of the most controversial methods of dating. Less than a decade ago, scientists used Carbon Dating to prove the earth was approx. 50 Billion years old. More recently, they decided it may only be 6 Billion Years old. Carbon dating "facts" keep changing as time passes. I have found several websites that say it can only calculate up to 50,000 years of dating (not including fossils), 30,000 years, and "several thousand years" along with several articles that state carbon dating can not be used to date fossils, more so rocks and isotopes; I also find several websites claiming fossils can be dated using Carbon Dating.

It's filled with inconsistencies... and Science is ALWAYS changing and getting its "facts" straight. We're always realizing that what we thought was true and factual isn't really factual and true.

I thought the complete opposite while reading your post, however, you did actually put some thought into this post, and I greatly appreciate that.

 

C-14 does decay predictably, which is why it can be used for dating. You cannot use it to date stuff billions of years old however.

This is how I learned about it in physics (the concept of half-life and using it for stuff like carbon dating): Stick 1000 pennies in a box, shake it up like crazy, then open it and count how many pennies were heads up and heads down. It may vary a little, but it will be near 50% heads up 50% heads down. Now take all the pennies out of the box that were heads down. Close and shake the box again, repeat the process. Each time you'll get about half and half. However, when you get down to low numbers, the process becomes much more unpredictable.

Now, apply this to C-14. Half of the atoms will decay after a predictable amount of time. However, when there are only so many atoms left, this timeline starts becoming unpredictable. For C-14 this is around 40k years old.

There are different methods to date different things. Scientests wouldn't use unpredicatble events to date something. If someone uses carbon dating to date something 1 billion years old, they aren't a scientist.

In my eyes, believing in this does not require faith in science, because you can learn everything yourself and do all the research yourself, and see the process yourself, if you really wanted to.

As far as religion, I was raised catholic but I haven't gone to church in years. I consider myself agnostic, as I don't believe anyone can prove or disprove God, Jesus, Mohammed, etc. I have no problem with other people following the religion of their choice, well, because I can't tell them they are right or wrong. If that religion is right for them and helps them live a better and happier life, so be it.

I just live my life as best I can. Though if I were to relate myself with any religion, it would probably be Buddhism.

My psuedo-religion is my education, work, and car wink1.gif

 

I will not say if there is or is not a god, I personally feel that what ever gets you through this life is good. I also think that anything that lays beyond this life has a LOT to do with what you belive in this life.

If you think you are a sinner and damned to hell.. chances are you are going to go there. The human capacity for beliefe is THAT great. I personally believe in reincarnation. I was not always that way though.

I started life as a Roman Catholic, did the 12 years of Catholic school, I was an altar boy (but not an abused one), and had even considered becoming a priest. I guess I have always had a philosphical bent to my look on life. What started my "fall from grace" was my getting deathly ill my Freshman year in High School. That was the year my Crohnes kicked in and I went from 125 pounds and six feet (and big boned at that) to less than 90 pounds soaked. I was emeciated and starving, with everything I ate going through me in about an hour (or less) without being digested.

After SIX months of suffering this way, and countless prayers, Masses, and novenas said for me to no avail, they finally diagnosed me. It was not religion that saved my arse from committing suicide and ending it all, but an interest in the spiritual and metaphysical.

After college, I hooked up with a Chinese girl, we actually lived together for almost a year. She was from the Mainland (her parents still live there, high up party members running a factory.. thanks to them, the Government has a file on me) and while I taught her better english and how to get around as an american, she taught me her ways, culture, and Taoism...

I unfortunatly cannot say it ends there. It was only a few years ago that I hooked up with a native Japanese girl.. she took my Taoism and twisted it towards Shinto as well.. but I guess that is ok. To the Japanese, you can be Baptised a Christian, get married in a shinto wedding, and buried by the Buddhists.. they cover all their bases and so can I.

So to sum up my twisted and complicated belief system... I follow a few very simple rules. From Jesus, "Love your neighbor as yourself" and "Judge not, lest you be judged" I also believe that everything happens for a reason, that there is always a "way" things are supposed to happen no matter what you do to avoid it. And I think that if you do take things in stride and in harmony with those things around you, life is much easier and more stress free.

Religion is not for the weak minded, it is just a way to get through life. FANATICISIM is for the weak minded. It is not the average church goer who causes trouble with their neighors, most religions teach that you should respect each other and other religions.. it is those who have gone too far that we should all be worried about. Those that use religion as a way to sheild their intentions, their goals, and their true face from those around them.

All things in moderation.

 

I think a good way to put it is this:
As stated by a few people previously in this topic, the bible (like textbooks in schools) was written by people by their personal accounts and even sometimes second hand accounts and so on. But look at the text books we use in our History classes. I never once saw a book from my school go in depth to particular atrocities done by our own military, just other countries'. You would need to go to a different country to get those stories. My point is, people are imperfect, and because they are imperfect, you can't believe that because one person wrote something down 2000 years ago that it's true. I don't like to preach or go in depth of my own beliefs, because you should believe what your life has tought you to believe because that is what will get you through. How many people are confirmed in a religion simply because that's what your parents are, so that's the communal schooling you went through? I don't think there is a RIGHT religion, or that anyone is better than another or smarter than another because of what they believe to be true. We were all brought up with a foundation set down by our parents in what they believe/believed, but it is our own personal duty to construct the house above it. And as for the comments about how do we know there is a God since there is no proof...How do you know outer space is there, have you been there? Have you seen the bottom of the ocean, because I haven't...My point is, if you believe, it isn't because it's something you can see or touch, you have to have faith. I've never seen or experienced many things that some of you have, and the same, many of you haven't seen or experienced things that I have...does that mean it didn't happen?