Due to entropy, the 2nd law of thermodynamics, etc, we know that there isn't such a thing as a perpetual motion machine. Everything which begins to exist does appear to end, including the Universe. For instance, the expansion of the Universe into heat death. A record player will wear out, a DVD player will break down. I believe that the temporal is temporary because it was created with a specific purpose which will end. After that, only that which is perfected and can co-exist with God eternally will remain.

Yes, talk of the eternal is intelligible. It doesn't mean we can't grasp a few concepts about it. One, it lasts forever, always has been, always will be. It never began to exist and it will never end. Two, it is essentially perfect, because it doesn't break down. It has no real flaw or weakness. It is self-contained and nothing could be added to it to make it better than it is in this sense.

Yes, you can doubt anything, but reality is orderly. It has a way which works and makes sense. I'm not sure why you believe time is only in the mind, because we can do very precise experiments on forces which show time as an emergent conception. What we perceive of time may be faulty, but clearly everything isn't happening at once; there is a logical progression to events which suggests time is more than in our minds.

As far as astronomical history you're talking about a history which is completely speculative and not based on observation, ie the origin of the moon, dinosaurs etc. If you doubt so much, why do you accept the secular narrative as truth? There are certain things such as the existence of the short period comets that proves a young earth. IE, if they're still here it means the Earth can't be that old. The secular narrative inserts the illusive and unobservable "Oort cloud" which supposedly replenishes all the comets.

Yes, I believe knowledge is certain and true, but I think you must see how limited beings with limited perceptions and knowledge take quite a bit on faith. Just in your normal life, you must see past your senses to navigate and interact with reality. You don't know everything that is going to happen, or even what you do know is even reliable, but you make the best of it. I don't see how anything could pass the "certainty" test.

I said what is spiritual couldn't be empircally proven, but I believe God has material evidence because He is a part of history. Where the rubber meets the road is the resurrection of Christ. God did interact with this world; He redeemed it. God isn't beholden to the world though, as if He needs anything..it is by Grace that He interacts with us. I will also tell you that God proves Himself. He promised to reveal Himself to those who come to Him in repentance of sin, who believe in Him and His resurrection and confess Him as Lord. To those He reveals Himself and grants eternal life. God can change a skeptic to a believer in a nanosecond, but He isn't going to show Himself to the world until the right time. What He wants is a heart willing to change, a broken and contrite heart coming to Him in total humility.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
@shinyblurry
There is no logical necessity for time to have an ending only because it had a beginning. A record player spinning with no end comes to mind. There is no reason to assume the end is necessarily destruction. A comparable analogy would be would be when a DVD is over; the fact that it has ended has nothing to do with its eradication. Either is plausible. There is also no reason to assume that something eternal will arise from temporal. It isn't impossible either, mind you, just not necessarily or shown to be the case.
I don't think it is possible to think about what is more plausible about eternity. We have no idea how to predicate eternity. We don't know "Being" is a consistent idea with "Eternal". Any type of talk about eternal is unintelligible. I don't mean that in a rude way, what I mean is I have no reason to believe anything that is said. If 2 things are logically possible, and I have no understanding of what it means to be eternal, then any talk about what is the more "likely" mode of an eternal metaphysics is a fruitless debate, rife with personal bias and little else.
And once again, this whole line of thought revolves around the very subjective idea of time. I have had no compelling argument to show time to be anything more than an experience of minds any more than the color blue. I have no reason to accept time as anything more than the way in which minds alter the information of the universe to make us more successful creatures.
I don't understand, beyond bias, why you would accept data about a young earth vs an old one with any less skepticism. Assuming they are using the same dating methods, why trust 10k year old earth and not 13 billion? The detective work that goes into the methods of age aren't perfect, prone to mis-calibration, and lack true modes to calibrate with, but it never claimed to be exact, just a rough cut. When they talk about the ages of dinosaurs, it usually has 50ish million year give or takes. Even our own solar history, and the history of our moon, and of Mars speak far more about a much older universe than a 10k year old one. I also can't see the Grand Canyon being made in 10k years. But isn't is a debate on the Christion bible, but on a more basic idea.
I am not an empiricist. I believe my classification is either a existential phenomenologist, or perhaps an transcendental idealist...most likely a combination of the two great schools of rationalism and empiricism. For me, knowledge is the same as Descartes put it. It is certain, and it is true. By certain, that means it passes Cartesian doubt. More to the point, it means that it has the right stuff to have an answer to every criticism. It is the opposite of doubt, it is certain. In that, religious evidence fails the certainty test, as the main element of all the great religions isn't knowledge, but faith. So to your point, prove that it can be known, with certainty and without any doubt any of the claims you have made, you would be the first in history to do so, to my knowledge. And to say that God can not be empirically proven seems rather lonely, for it means that God does not interact with this world; as empirical study is the world as it is beholden to man. If God is not beholden to the world which man exists, then he isn't really our God.

@shinyblurry

There is no logical necessity for time to have an ending only because it had a beginning. A record player spinning with no end comes to mind. There is no reason to assume the end is necessarily destruction. A comparable analogy would be would be when a DVD is over; the fact that it has ended has nothing to do with its eradication. Either is plausible. There is also no reason to assume that something eternal will arise from temporal. It isn't impossible either, mind you, just not necessarily or shown to be the case.

I don't think it is possible to think about what is more plausible about eternity. We have no idea how to predicate eternity. We don't know "Being" is a consistent idea with "Eternal". Any type of talk about eternal is unintelligible. I don't mean that in a rude way, what I mean is I have no reason to believe anything that is said. If 2 things are logically possible, and I have no understanding of what it means to be eternal, then any talk about what is the more "likely" mode of an eternal metaphysics is a fruitless debate, rife with personal bias and little else.

And once again, this whole line of thought revolves around the very subjective idea of time. I have had no compelling argument to show time to be anything more than an experience of minds any more than the color blue. I have no reason to accept time as anything more than the way in which minds alter the information of the universe to make us more successful creatures.

I don't understand, beyond bias, why you would accept data about a young earth vs an old one with any less skepticism. Assuming they are using the same dating methods, why trust 10k year old earth and not 13 billion? The detective work that goes into the methods of age aren't perfect, prone to mis-calibration, and lack true modes to calibrate with, but it never claimed to be exact, just a rough cut. When they talk about the ages of dinosaurs, it usually has 50ish million year give or takes. Even our own solar history, and the history of our moon, and of Mars speak far more about a much older universe than a 10k year old one. I also can't see the Grand Canyon being made in 10k years. But isn't is a debate on the Christion bible, but on a more basic idea.

I am not an empiricist. I believe my classification is either a existential phenomenologist, or perhaps an transcendental idealist...most likely a combination of the two great schools of rationalism and empiricism. For me, knowledge is the same as Descartes put it. It is certain, and it is true. By certain, that means it passes Cartesian doubt. More to the point, it means that it has the right stuff to have an answer to every criticism. It is the opposite of doubt, it is certain. In that, religious evidence fails the certainty test, as the main element of all the great religions isn't knowledge, but faith. So to your point, prove that it can be known, with certainty and without any doubt any of the claims you have made, you would be the first in history to do so, to my knowledge. And to say that God can not be empirically proven seems rather lonely, for it means that God does not interact with this world; as empirical study is the world as it is beholden to man. If God is not beholden to the world which man exists, then he isn't really our God.

Oh, okay, so you believe everything you read. That's not very intelligent, or at least it's not very SMART. The bible was written hundreds of years ago, and has since been translated and re-translated to and from dozens of different languages. Individuals and groups in power throughout different points in history have taken it upon themselves to modify the bible, adding and omitting pieces here and there to suit their agenda. They knew that gullible sheep, unable to think for themselves, are easily swayed by religion, and what better way to control a populace than by attacking their very basis for the way they live their lives?

God pre-exists everything. We know God exists because He lets us know, and He would let you know that if you sought Him out. The New Testament was written 2000 years ago. The Old Testament is at least 1000 years older than that. We have copies of the early manuscripts so we know what the original bibles looked like. So the translations today are accurate, and this idea that they are corrupt is just outright false. Yes, man has used the bible for evil ends, but this is no different from anything else man does. The very reason that Jesus Christ came to Earth is because man is so desperately wicked and needs Gods redemption.

Additionally, if one is intelligent, and they believe in ancient myths, obviously they're going to be some of the greatest minds the world has ever known, right? That's why all the geniuses of the world are devout Christians or whatever religion you want to name, right? WRONG.

NASA is not run by rocket scientists who go to church on Sunday. Great inventors and genius-level individuals such as Stephen Hawking are not religious specifically BECAUSE they are intelligent. They are able to think for themselves, not be told what to think.

Some of the greatest minds in history were devout Christians..and some of the greatest scientists:

Francis Bacon - Originated the scientific method
Johannes Kepler - Laws of Planetary motion
Galileo Galilei - Father of modern astronomy
Nicolaus Copernicus - Heliocentric Universe
James Clerk Maxwell - Electromagnetic field
Neils Bohr - the Atom
Louis Pasteur - germ theory of disease
Rene Descartes - Philosopher and mathematician
Issac Newton - Invented classical mechanics
Max Planck - Founder of quantum mechanics

A lot of modern science is built on the backs of Christian thinkers, as you can see, and that is just a short list. Today, around 10 percent of scientists believe in God. At least 50 nobel laureates believe in God. Now, if you want to talk about great thinkers, how about Albert Einstein? He believed in God. Although not a Christian, here is what he had to say about Jesus:

"To what extent are you influenced by Christianity?"
"As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene."
"Have you read Emil Ludwig’s book on Jesus?"
"Emil Ludwig’s Jesus is shallow. Jesus is too colossal for the pen of phrasemongers, however artful. No man can dispose of Christianity with a bon mot!"
"You accept the historical existence of Jesus?"
"Unquestionably! No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life."7

Of course, religion and science are completely unrelated topics, and one does not have to be non-secular in order to be a scientist, but typically, the two mindsets would conflict, as religionists base their beliefs off of emotion and other irrational concepts. Scientists use a thought process, experimentation, and ruling out possibilities in order to come to conclusions and figure out FACTS about the universe around us. There are scientists who believe in the possibility of a god, but it takes a different form than that of some all-seeing being that created everything. I'll never try to explain that to you, though, as you're too blinded by foolish nonsense that has been force-fed to you since childhood.

I will leave you with this though: Adam and Eve. Here's some fruit. I'm going to tempt you with it, and then create a snake to TALK to you and tell you you should eat some of it, and THEN I'm gunna come back and be all "OH SHIT WHAT THE FUCK?! I SMITE THEE FOR ALL ETERNITY!!!" just to fuck with humanity. Wow. You worship a pretty evil, and vindictive force. Why would you want to do that? The fucker's up there just fucking with us like a little kid with a magnifying glass over an ant hill. Jesus christ, you must really enjoy misery. I'll take the reality of humanity surviving on our own acquiescence and compassion over that bullshit any day!

I base my belief off of personal revelation. I was an agnostic my entire life and raised without religion, and I was a secular humanist and a strict materialist who didn't see any evidence for God or spirit. God woke me up to the truth and let me know He is real. If you want science facts, you only have to examine the first page of the bible:

In the beginning (TIME) God created the heavens (SPACE) and the earth (MATTER)

And God said, “Let there be light (ENERGY),” and there was light.

It took mankind 3000 years to catch up and figure out the Universes foundation is based on these principles. There is also no better description which uniquely fits the big bang theory. Creation ex-nihilio, which is creation from nothing.

The serpent you're referring to was Satan. God put the tree there because He gave mankind free will to follow His commands or not. He also warned them of the consequences if they ate of the fruit. Adam and Eve decided to disobey God and believe the lie because Satan promised them they would have Gods power if they did it. So, instead of trusting God, they lusted after His power and betrayed Him. That's why they were kicked out of the garden. Their sin brought death into the world.

No, God didn't damn us for eternity. It's the very reason God sent His son Jesus to die on the cross, to save us from this fate we created and redeem mankind. So we could have eternal life with God again in the Kingdom of Heaven. We are sinners, and the wages of sin is death. Gods gift of salvation is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

A fair statement, and I understand and tend to agree with where you're coming from.. I chose to challenge you only because I am familiar with the work that IONS (the Institute of Noetic Sciences, which Mitchell founded based, partly, on this original seminal experience), and the research they do on the paraliminal levels of consciousness and the expanded ranges of human potential. I'm quite familiar with the scientific rigor with which they approach such research and the basis upon which they rely on multiple ways of "knowing," that does not simply base all knowledge on logic and reason, but also on phenomenal experience, qualitative understanding, and intuitive inquiry. There are multiple approaches to epistemology that include and extend beyond mere logic and reason -- and the scientific wisdom it yields just as valid, reliable, and valuable to attained human knowledge.

Personally, I understand Mitchell's quote as a form of "received" wisdom, not unlike Rene Descarte's vision of the "Angel of Truth" which ultimately gave rise to the cogito ergo sum, Archimedes' moment of Eureka which served as the basis fo displacement as a measurement of density, or Sir Isaac Newton's revelation of mathematics as encapsulating the laws of universal physics.


>> ^WKB:

>> ^Trancecoach:
And on which form of epistemology do you base that statement?
>> ^WKB:
>> ^Trancecoach:
I think Mitchell's use of the term, "divinity" refers to the force or power inherent in humanity's reason and capacities to acquire knowledge, rather than in the "magic" of one's faith in a deity.
>> ^WKB:
>> ^Trancecoach:
My sense is that a lot of our international issues can be resolved after a critical mass of people make it out of Earth's gravity and are able to look down on its fragile state from above...
Astronaut, Edgar Mitchell said about the experience of spaceflight, "The presence of divinity became almost palpable, and I knew that life in the universe was not just an accident based on random processes ... The knowledge came to me directly."

The first half of your statement I agree with in absolute completeness. Understanding our vulnerable situation is indeed reason to work together to ensure the survival of us all.
While I am no astronaut, I could not disagree more with the second half. I think that contemplating the fragile nature of life on this planet and the amazing accomplishments our species has accumulated is a reason to celebrate our knowledge, not our faith. Reason, evidence, and knowledge is what has allowed us to even contemplate this issue. Faith has done nothing to solve the problems of leaving the atmosphere, surviving the vacuum, achieving a stable orbit, or reentering the world safely. To suddenly take the amazement of life as we now understand it, thanks to science, and chalk it all up to some divine magic seems insulting to the knowledge, reason, and human intellect that has gotten us here.


I really doubt that based on the context of the statement. "Life wasn't an accident based on random processes," "the knowledge came to me directly,"... sounds like magic talk to me.


I had to look that word up to make sure I knew what the heck it means. I'm not sure where the nature of knowledge comes into it. I am simply pointing out that it seems to me that the ideas Mitchell brings up in the very sentence in which he uses the word divinity are evidence to support the idea that he is talking about a divine creator. (Which is what I meant by, 'magic,' no offense intended.) I see no evidence that he is using the word divinity to celebrate humanity's reason and capacity to acquire knowledge based on the provided quote. I have great admiration for Edgar Mitchel, and anyone who risks their life to help expand human understanding of the universe as he did, but that particular quote of his seemed to me to ring hollow.

Wall of text warning. No tl;dr. Learn to read dammit (see what I did there?).

@quantumushroom

Unusual post from you there qm. But again you miss the point (what did you expect?).

First off, religion necessarily has an effect on society otherwise no one would care if you adhered or not (i.e. there would be no religious wars, no religious-based hatred etc.). The problem is not that religion enhances your sense of well-being, it's that as a consequence (or side effect if you will) you close yourself off from people of a different religion and from contrary opinions on many different matters: you trade freedom of thought for psychological safety and by doing that you deserve neither. Now, if you're a "religious scientist" type then your either not really religious or not really a scientist. Compartmentalization can only get you so far.

Second, wtf does any of this has to do with liberalism? Your tangent does not intersect my argument at any point. I bet you can't derive for shit. Do you even know what derivation is?

Third, atheism is neutral. Atheism is to theism as amoralism is to moralism. The antonym to moral is not amoral but immoral. In the same way, the antonym to theism is non-theism. A non-theist can be religious, he simply does not believe in a deity or deities. Atheism was a term invented by theists to vilify non-theist and polytheists. It has been adopted by non-religious people like "nigger" has been adopted by African-Americans, as a way of empowerment. It encompasses many views, most of them non-religious. It does not mean atheists cannot suffer from the same delusions as religious people, only that they are less likely because by identifying and refusing to accept the kind of bad thinking that goes on in religious circles, they have inoculated themselves to a point.

Fourth, on the contrary one could say that there have never been a religion without a state. Every religion needs a vector of power to affirm its authority and convert others. The Jews in Pharaonic Egypt formed a state within a state, electing their own leaders and applying the laws of Abraham to their brethren, much like Muslims try to do in western countries by following sharia law and even trying to make it official. I would go so far as to say that religion is the prototype of the state. Look at Buddhism. Not a year after the Buddha died and already sects formed and tried to control the movement he started. The conflicts may not have been overtly violent, but they were power struggles and as such quite far from the detachment from worldly matters taught by the Buddha. All prophets are dictators. Their intentions may be good, but it will always turn sour when they're gone as they, and not their god or teachings, are really what unify their followers. The continuation depends not on the person or the teachings but on the institutions that they or their successors build, just like a state. You could see what I mean if you had read the Leviathan of Hobbes (that's not what he says, but the parallels he makes and his insistence that religion is necessary for the state's well-being goes in this direction). This, to me, argues for anarchism but of course with people like quantumushroom - not to mention the potential for greed and cruelty still in all of us - I would have to say we are not ripe for it just yet. It may well be that a great part of the population will need to be forced to become atheists just to live among an atheist society comfortably, like atheists were once forced to recant their views in religious societies. While it would mean some psychological violence, as long as we stay in a democratic state it would not do more damage than what religion does now and I believe it would benefit humankind in the long run.

@Gallowflak

Nowhere did I say atheists were more rational than the religious. In fact, most rationalists (like Descartes) are religious for various reasons, one which I will explore below. I said that atheists are more reasonable and detached in their understanding of the world. Now, while "reasonable" comes from "reason" it does not mean here that a reasonable person uses more reason than another. It means that a person is more sensible than another. For example, there are no empirically verifiable evidence of a god or gods. Any religious person not mentally ill will agree. They may argue for the acceptance of anecdotal evidence or of natural phenomena as "acts of God", but just saying something doesn't make it so and anecdotal evidence is not verifiable/repeatable by a third-party and thus of very little value. So there doesn't seem to be any evidence for deities, even Pascal admitted that fact in the frickin 17th century, that's why he had to make a wager with non-believers: he tried to say that by betting on an infinite reward you cannot lose (many think that Pascal says the odds are infinite, but that would be empirical. Pascal says that since god is presumably infinite, and that you presumably gain this infinity when you die, you should take the bet since by doing so you lose nothing in this life. Of course the last part I think is false, also the dying part. Only the "god is infinite" has any kind of weight and it is very light). Of course he didn't really understand mathematical infinity and thus didn't realize that doing so meant you only had an infinitesimal chance of winning in return.

Digression aside, this means that the natural state of a rational being would be non-theistic. Only non-rational belief (based on logical fallacies or the sentiment of faith) or logical arguments based on non-empirical premises can lead to the existence of a god as part of one's thinking. Thus, while not necessarily non-rational, religious thinking most of the time is. In other cases, when dubious premises are used, we would say that the conclusions are not reasonable, meaning that they do not agree with our raw, unfiltered experiences of the world. This is exactly why many religious persons and theists resort to rationalism, as it lets them bypass primary experience in order to define god a priori as the creator of our experiences by some logical argument with dubious premises. Of course this comes from an empiric viewpoint, but then again rationalists don't have a monopoly on reason even though they let us empiricists have a monopoly on experience: that's where the Kantians enter, but that's a story for another time I'm afraid.

ahh, Descartes... what an a*hole.

In reply to this comment by GenjiKilpatrick:
Well when you're livin' in a pacman universe Enoch.. =]

Why waste your time contemplating divine concepts when contemplating practical ones give you more direct, less mysterious results?


people are different and we all appreciate,love and have a passion for many varying curiosities.
can you imagine how our world and society would be if there were people who did not think outside the box?
to reach and search for answers and understandings differently than the norm?
we wouldnt be talking on computers if they didnt.

i think our seeming disagreement is semantics.
when i use terms like "divine" or "spirit" ,you may perceive my usage from a different perspective.
that is the fundamental pitfall of language.

because..and i assume here..i really cant see you disparaging socrates or tsung,descartes or chardin.all of these men,in their own way..questioned the current belief system and in doing so CHANGED that belief system.

Ten years ago I was 19 and a born-again, holy-rolling Christian. Worked in an automotive factory making parts for the Toyota Camry. You may be driving a faulty Camry at this moment. Sorry if you die. I was a bad employee and was let go.

Nine years ago I was living in my birth town near Mt. Rushmore, lazily pretending to work in a lumber yard as I lost my religion under the watchful eyes of George Carlin, Rene Descartes and my own sense of logic. I moved back to my home state and promptly watched my grandmother die of a heart attack.

Eight years ago I was working in an injection molding plant, getting tattooed and listening to Slipknot while the towers fell. I laughed while watching them fall, because it looked like a movie. Don't let Michael Bay film a tragedy.

Seven years ago I was working under the Golden Arches, getting tattooed and arrested. No conviction, though. If the glove don't fit...

Six years ago I was moving to the City of Trees for a girl. Yeah, I know...

Five years ago I watched Bush get re-elected, and thought about Rage Against the Machine lyrics.

Four years ago I watched the girl move out of my apartment a week after I started college. Somehow I failed that semester.

Three years ago I started making sandwiches and pretended to enjoy the company of customers. I may have also gotten laid that year at some point. I think.

Two years ago I still made sandwiches, but I quit school because the American education system is ridiculous.

One year ago I worked for the Evil Empire of Mr. Sam Walton and lived with a bunch of vegan hipsters. WTF was I thinking?

This year I started by walking out of Wally World and into the land of unemployment and living in a friend's house while I got back on my feet. (Which means I'm making sandwiches again.)

In between all of those I read halves of interesting books, wrote halves of my own interesting books, wrote halves of interesting pieces of music, memorized numbers, found number patterns, made friends, lost friends, smoked the occasional joint, smoked the occasional cigarette, drank too much, lost a few thousand dollars in poker and spent too much time on Facebook and Videosift, from which I've been banned two or three times.

Edit: Somewhere in there I watched my mother try to commit suicide twice. Forgot about that.

The best part of Descartes was the Cartesian Coordinates

Rene Descartes walks into a bar. The Bartender asks him, "how about a beer?"
"I think not," replies Rene. POOF! he disappears...

>> ^jwray:
Platinga's free will defense is merely a stealthy withdrawal of the axiom of omnipotence. Besides, free will has nothing to do with evolved parasites.
The problem of evil is absolutely unsolvable. The existence of evil contradicts the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God.
The hypothesis of god does not help at all in making accurate predictions about the universe, therefore it should be discarded. Besides, his supposed powers would contradict all known laws of physics.

The concept of evil is not wholly a logical one, so perhaps in this sense you are right - it isn't a problem to be solved: like one solves an equation.
Secondly, omnipotence is partially a paradox, so it probably has an extra-logical "solution." I find the best, and also truly funny, answer to the old scholastic problem of God creating a stone he cant lift this one

God creates a stone he cant lift
God lifts said stone.

This is a proper paradox, I think. But even Descartes said that God perhaps isn't bound by mathematics. Since all of science is basically math + "reality", searching for evidential experience for God is almost a heresy. What would that entail, anyway?

the lyrics in the description are wrong:

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable,
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table,
David Hume could out-consume,
Schopenhauer and Hegel.
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.

There's nothing Nietzche couldn't teach ya
'Bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates himself was permanently pissed.

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
Plato, they say could stick it away,
Half a crate of whiskey everyday.
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
Hobbes was fond of his dram,
And René DesCartes was a drunken fart
"I drink, therefore I am."

Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed,
A lovely little thinker
but a bugger when he's pissed.

Hey, anyone hear that? It's Descartes turning in his grave.

I guess I should answer my own question.

I had an experience somewhat like that of SDGundamX, in which I was a believer, but now am not.

I was raised as the type of Christian who believes in Jesus as much as Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, but even after my belief in the latter two was rescinded by my mother, the belief in Jesus persisted. Looking back, I find it odd that the way I learned about Jesus and Santa was equal, yet it was easy for my mother to throw away one, but never let go of the other.

So I spent the greater part of youth pretending to believe in Jesus, even though the actual thought of his reality never crossed my mind, except when my mother warned me about the rapture, then promptly forgot to tell me she was going to the grocery store early one Saturday morning. I woke to find the only other person in the house had "vanished," and I thought I was doomed to hell for eternity.

When I was 17, I went to a revival with my church youth group, mainly because it was in Florida and I wanted to see the ocean and hot girls in skimpy bikinis. Little did I realize that by the end of the trip, I'd be "born again." I never did get to see girls in skimpy bikinis. What a shame.

For the next three years I went to church eight times a week, not realizing for a second that it was mainly for the unity and peer acceptance.

The interesting part of my conversion was when I decided to become a preacher. I realized one day that I had never really read the Bible much, and that was the vital first step in preaching to people. Obviously you can't preach the word without reading it, right?

So I read the entire Bible in a few months. And you know what? It changed me. But not like I expected.

It's funny to tell people the reason I lost my faith was because I read the Bible, but it's true.

I read the stories that made no sense, and I read the stories that were just plain disgusting. And it bothered me. It bothered me because a holy book should be holier than this, and it bothered me because my faith was being tested.

As I was walking through a bookstore one day I noticed a philosophy book by Descartes, and I picked it up. The first part said that anything you believe is only a reflection of what you've been taught, so in the spirit of "Cogito ergo sum," everybody should start to doubt everything they've ever been taught, and start over on their own.

So I did that.

I started by analyzing the aspects of Christianity that didn't seem right to me.

I stopped believing in hell because it didn't make sense for a loving god to create a place to send people who simply didn't believe in him.

I stopped believing in prayer, because God's will precludes any need for it.

And little by little, I lost all my faith in god.

Through the past eight years I've changed my mind a lot, going through all types of beliefs, and I don't think I'll ever have a concrete idea of anything beyond the physical realm. But that's okay, because I know why I see the world in this light, and I've realized that nobody really needs to know everything, anyway. There could be a god, but there are so many questions relating to the identity and traits of said being that, it's impossible to understand the concept in an objective way.

So yeah, that was long-winded.

So I guess my answer is:

No, but how the hell would I know?

i got your philosophy joke right here:

rene descartes walks into a bar. the bartender says "can i get you a beer?"

descartes says "i think not" and disappears.