I would beg to differ on this sentiment. We have little knowledge of where we come from. Even Francis Crick, one of the founders of DNA suggested that we are on Earth through panspermia from another sentient race.

Then you have to ask who created them, and who created the creators, and so on. It becomes a chain of causality. You then have two options. Either, you have to believe that something came from nothing, or, there is an eternal first cause of everything that exists. I think something coming from nothing is impossible, so an eternal first cause is the only option left. If you agree, then we'll call that God.

Who knows? The Christian perception of god in reality is quite possibly unfathomably simple, that is to say that which is the creation of all existence. Listen, I want the truth just as much as you do, that is why I gone far out to experience mystical experiences that only prove to me that whatever this is, is far more complex and loving.

It's good to hear that you are pursuing the truth. That is something I greatly respect. My question to you is, if the truth is Jesus Christ, as He claims (I am the way, the *truth* and the life), would you turn your life over to Him?

The Christian conception of God is actually very complex in some ways, and simple in others. Complex, when you consider the Holy Trinity and the incarnation of Christ. Simple, when you consider the Fathers love for His children the sacrificial love of His Son. The theology also shares this dichotomy of depth and simplicity, and it is all knit together with sinews of love and unity into the mystical body of Christ. The Christian God is, like the Universe He created, both complex and simple.

I'm not sure what you mean by more loving. I'm going to need a definition and example of what you're talking about before I reply to that.

No one can prove Jesus was raised from the dead it is a phenomenon not widely occurring. I would never say that Jesus never existed but I think it is probable that Jesus existed in a much more humble way than what is described by his disciples. Therefore, I look at it as a book of tall tales. There is nothing wrong with that, I mean if you can accept it for what it really is... a book of Tall Tales.

Presumably, if Jesus is alive, He could prove it couldn't He?

Yes, I went to a Lutheran church every Sunday for eighteen years. Most of my parents community were involved with the church. They all know my feelings on the subject and over time I have seen their Christian foundations dissolve for better or worse. For me, it is undeniably a farce of divinity. I respect Christianity, probably without Christianity I would never had wanted to seek out the real, hard truths. Christianity spoke so much of honesty and truth. I adore those concepts and unfortunately Christianity does not hold a flame to what I now know.

You will find me very much in agreement with you when you say that dead religion is a farce of divinity. When it comes down to it, there are two types of Christians in this world. Those who have a religion, and those who have a relationship. Those who have a religion are those who follow the traditions of men, and believe that to follow God is to go to church, read the bible, and pray at the suitable times. Basically, if they follow their good and bad checklist well enough, some day they will make it to Heaven. Their faith is blind and based only on what they've read, but not what they've understood to be true from experience.

Those who have a relationship are those who have a personal, intimate, experiential relationship with the living God. They have the Holy Spirit living with them, who has supernaturally transformed them into new people. These people experience the presence of God in their daily lives, and are personally guided by God in everything they do. These people know the truth, experience it, and live it out every single day. It sounds to me that your experience had the character of the former and not the latter. I am not shocked at all that you left the church under those pretenses, and I would have too. It is a story I have heard many times in the past, that people who grew up with dead religion and never learned how to have a personal relationship with Christ, quickly abandoned the faith of their parents, because either they never really believed in the first place, or they had no foundation for their beliefs, and the world quickly converted them to its ways.

There is more to this story Shinyblurry, my spiritual quest started late, after I was free from the churches hold . I am not a liar, I have never purposefully stolen anything and I treat people with honesty and compassion. I may be very left leaning but I find myself to be much more ethical, non judgemental and compassionate than most

I appreciate that you're a relatively moral person. We as humans tend to judge ourselves based on a relative standard, based on how we line up to other people. Compared to rapists and pedophiles, we're both very upstanding citizens I am sure. Compared to Hitler, we are looking almost perfect. Yet, God doesn't judge on a sliding scale; He uses an absolute standard. Gods standard for good is moral perfection, and He considers anything short of that to be evil. That is why God is holy and we are not. So, for example, you say that you're not a liar, but if you've ever told even one lie then you are in fact a liar, as a liar is a person who has lied. If you've ever stolen *anything*, regardless of its value, you're a thief. If you've ever used Gods name in vain you are a blasphemer. Gods standards are even higher than this, though, in that He consider what you've thought in your heart. For example, if you've ever even looked at a woman with lust He considers you an adulterer at heart, and Jesus says if you've ever hated anyone you've murdered them in your heart. (full disclosure: I've done all of these things) So you can see that our relative standard doesn't cut it when it comes to what God considers good, and even one sin is too many. That's why Jesus died for our sins, because we cannot meet Gods holy standard on our own.

One night maybe ten years ago, for a few seconds, and then hours I thought God had contacted me and it was weirdest thing I have ever experienced. And it was real, I mean the experience. And so my quest began and I found a partial truth after many years of research...

Tell me more about your experience of God..why was it weird, and what partial truth did you find that seemed to confirm it?

and it only raises more questions on divinity, soul, morality, the mind, the universe. Thus is life. Keep asking questions. Keep thinking. Keep researching.

I respect your search for the truth, and I think it is a good thing. Scripture says, seek and you shall find. Ask and you shall be given. Knock, and the door will open. Do you believe that you have a soul?

The truth is out there, yet none of us know it yet. And I mean NO ONE.

I'll have to stop you here because you're making an absolute claim and this is self-contradictory. This is revealed by the question, "is it absolutely true that no one knows the truth?" The best you could say is that you don't know the truth, but you don't know what I know. How could you, if you don't know what the truth is?

Further, this ties into what we're discussing about the video. That there are only two routes to truth. Either you are omnipotent, or you get revelation from an omnipotent being. Since neither of us are omnipotent, there is only one possibility of either of us knowing the truth, which is an omnipotent being revealing it to us. I fully agree with you that outside of such revelation no one knows anything. But, if God gave me such revelation how would you know whether He did or not? You couldn't say no one knows the truth, because you don't know what God has or has not revealed. You only know what God has revealed to you, if anything.

For the rest of you, here's some quotes from shinyblurry from another thread, just so you know where he's coming from.

----------------------------------

shinyblurry says...

Since you asked, I'll tell you why I believe in God. Up until 8 years ago I was agnostic. I was raised agnostic, without any religion. We celebrated Christmas and Easter, but that was about it. I wasn't raised to like or dislike religion, I was simply left free to decide what I believed.

At the time I became a theist, I didn't believe in a spiritual reality, or any God I had ever heard of, because like most of the people here I saw no evidence for it at all. I actually used to go into christian chat rooms and debate christians on what I saw to be inconsistances in the bible. A lot of what people have said in this thread are thoughts that I once had and arguments I used to use myself.

Then one day it all changed. I guess you could say my third eye was opened. I had something akin to a kundalini awakening, spontaneously out of nowhere. When it was over, I could suddenly perceive the spiritual reality. I didn't quite know what I was looking at, at the time..didn't truly understand what had happened to me (though through intuition i understood the great potential of it). It was only after researching it online and finding out about the chakras did I start to understand.

It's an amazing, truly truly amazing thing to find out everything you know is wrong. It is really utterly mind blowing. This however, was the conclusion I was forced to immediately reach however, because the evidence for it was right in front of my face. Everything that I had known up until the point I could perceive the spiritual was missing so many essential elements that I may as well have been just born.

I started to receive signs..little miracles, I would call them..like stepping in front of a vast panarama of nature and suddenly seeing it at an angle impossible to human sight, where everything is in focus at the same time, that produced such startling beauty it filled me to overflowing with estatic joy. I started to perceive there was a higher beauty, a higher love that had always been there but I had somehow missed it. I started to get the point, that there was something more. That there was a God.

When I conceded it was possible, to myself, it was then that I started to hear from Him directly. He let me know a couple of things, and proved to me that I wasn't just imagining Him. He showed me that He had been there my entire life, teaching me and guiding me as a child on, only I had been totally unaware of it. He showed me how we "shared space", and that not only could He read my mind, but in some essential way that He was what my mind is. That He is mind itself. He showed me how my thought process was more of a cooperative than a solitary thing.

Now before you say I just jumped at all of this because everyone wants to imagine a loving God, etc etc..untrue in my case. When I first found out He was definitely real, i was scared shitless. Up until that point, my thoughts about God were all negative. I figured if He did exist He probably hated me. You see, that is what I had gleaned growing up in a Christian society without actually knowing anything about it.

At this point I became a theist. I thought of God as a He because He seemed masculine rather than feminine, and also I thought of Him as the Creator. I didn't know anything about the bible, or the Holy Trinity, or what a messiah was, or any of that. I thought the God I knew must not be generally known because I had never seen anything out there that pointed to a loving God.

For the next 6 yeears I was on a spiritual journey. I studied all the various belief systems, spiritual or otherwise, all the religious history..east and west, north and south. I studied philosophy and esoteric wisdom, gurus and prophets. The one I really hadn't studied though, was Christianity. The reason being I didn't believe Jesus actually ever existed so I dismissed it out of hand.

Before I knew anything about Christianity, God taught me three important things about who He is. One, He taught me His nature is triune, that God is three. I didn't understand what that meant precisely, I just knew that was His nature. He also taught me that there was a Messiah. He taught me that there was someone whose job it was to save the world. The third thing and most important thing He taught me was about His love. That He loved everyone, and that He secretly took care of them whether they believed in Him or not. He showed me His perfect heart.

What led me to the bible was this: I asked Him who the Messiah was and He told me to look in a mirror. At the time I had been away from civilization for a few months and my beard had grown out for the first time in my life. I hadn't seen a mirror since I was clean shaven. I sought one out and when I saw my reflection I couldn't believe my eyes. I looked *exactly* like Jesus Christ. I mean to a T.

It was then I was forced to accept the possibility that Jesus was real. To be honest, I really didn't want to. I felt like I had a really special relationship with the Father and that Jesus could only get in the way of that. I didn't even feel like I could pay Him any real respect, because I knew the Father was greater than He was. But, I couldn't ignore what He was showing me, so I started to read the bible. To my surprise, I found out it was about the God I already knew.

Everything I read in the bible matched what I already knew about God . The Holy Trinity matched His triune nature. That there was a Messiah and Jesus was it. And most of all His love, His great and majestic love, for all people, was perfectly laid out in ways I had never before comprehended. The bible was the only information on Earth that accurately described what I already knew about God. That is how I knew it was true from the outset.

So that's when I became a Christian. I couldn't ignore the evidence. My journey to Christianity was based on rationality and logic, believe it or not, albiet with miracles and spirituality mixed in. Even the miracles themselves were logical, as God showed me how He worked from a meta-perspective, and that time and space didn't restrict Him at all. So there you have it..an interesting testimony to be sure.

I am unusual in that I didn't come to God on my own. God chose me, I didn't choose Him. I might never have come to God if He hadn't. I found out later that this means I was elected..in that, before God made the world He had already planned to create me to do His will. After He woke me up it never really took much faith to believe in God because He demonstrated to me His amazing power and ASTONISHING intellect in ways that were impossible to refute. Whatever brick wall I would put up, He would smash it down into oblivion. He favored me because I stayed hungry. I knew the truth was knowable, and I gunned for it 200 percent. I would have died for it.

So I empathize with the people here. Some of you might actually be elected too, it just is not your time to know. Some are probably angry/scared/rebelliious, while still others are intellectually incurious and swayed by hyperbole. I'm pretty sure not many people here have actually read the bible. I hadn't either..I was simply arrogant at the time.

So what I would say to people here is..there is far more going on than seems apparent..if you don't believe at least that there is a spiritual reality, you're practically rubbing two sticks together. God definitely exists and will prove it to you if you humble yourself, come to Him in sincerity, with your total heart and pray. Admit you're a sinner, and ask Him to be your Lord and Savior. Anyone can know God is real. I wish I had read it earlier..would have saved me a hardship. Save yourself the trouble and find out the truth for yourself, that God is real He loves you. God bless..

-------------------------------------

I knew a guy who was part of this religious group that drank wine and pretended it was the blood of some guy from 2000+ years ago. And they drank gallons of the stuff every week!!

Not believing the trinity is a sign of a rational mind, however I'm not sure rationality is at play here.

I don't care about the Trinity, or whether anyone believes it or not.
But, I know for certain that Rick Warren is a lying piece of shit who is wasting our oxygen.

your description implies that to be religious one has to believe in the trinity, which must be a mistake because of how egregiously wrong it is. also, your interpretation of the trinity doesn't make mormons non-christians. there are MANY interpretations of the trinity. there is no "right" interpretation of the trinity. but please, don't let me stop you hating on other christians/religions.

In 325, the Council of Nicea set out to officially define the relationship of the Son to the Father, in response to the controversial teachings of Arius. Led by bishop Athanasius, the council established the doctrine of the Trinity as orthodoxy and condemned Arius' teaching that Christ was the first creation of God. The creed adopted by the council described Christ as "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance (homoousios) with the Father."

Mormons reject the Nicene Creed, believing that Jesus Christ was the first born of the Father in spirit and the only begotten in the flesh. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints teaches that God the Father, His son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are one Godhead while remaining 3 distinct beings. The Father and the Son have glorified physical bodies, while the Holy Ghost has only a body of spirit.

The word "Trinity" does not appear in the Bible
The word "Trinity" was first used by Tertullian (c.155-230)
The doctrine of the Trinity is commonly expressed as: "One God, three Persons"
The doctrine is formally defined in the Nicene Creed, which declares Jesus to be: "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father."

Facts about the doctrine of the Trinity:
It is not mentioned in the Bible
It does not make philosophical sense
It is not compatible with monotheism
It is not necessary in order to explain the "specialness" of Jesus

In Matthew 3:16-17 of the KJV of the New Testament we read an account that includes all 3 members of the Godhead:

16 And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:

17 And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

Mormons assert that Jesus was not speaking to himself about being pleased with himself, but rather that God the Father was pleased in His son Jesus for being baptized while the Spirit of God descended upon Him (Jesus). This statement also implies that it (The Holy Spirit) was not there beforehand.

John 17:20-21 “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;

“That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us”

Mormons believe that it is that perfect unity between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost that binds these three into the oneness of the divine Godhead.


See also:

John 17:3 “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

Matt 17:1-5 “...after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,

“And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.

“And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.

“Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.

“While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.”

John 1:1-2, 14 “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth."

Matt. 12:31-32 “And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man (another name for Jesus Christ), it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come."

>> ^Sagemind:

He's using The Matrix to his advantage!


"Dodge this." --Trinity

I've been a fan of the game for some time. I started playing Beta Weekend Event 1 and every BWE after, and any stress test that I could. Since launch I haven't spent as much time on it as I would like, but unlike a certain other MMO it doesn't matter as there is no monthly fee. You can drop it and come back days later without feeling you wasted time playing other games or living life because it is buy to play. With WoW and SWTOR I often felt I had to play at least $15 worth each month to make it worth while. I really don't know why SWTOR is going full Free to Play rather than Buy to Play given the costs to make the game. Most games are going to cost the same amount anyhow, and then you get a game with a huge amount of content for that $60.

The only complaints I've heard were those who wanted endgame raids, those who miss the trinity, and the usual launch woes. (I still can't link my GW1 and GW2 accounts and customer service hasn't fixed it yet, though I've had a ticket open since the early launch for those who pre-purchased the game.)

I like WoW, and keep my free account. Even if they went BtP or FtP, I would still play GW2 more as I think it is just a better game play experience. I liked SWTOR, and while I don't pay the fee anymore (soon to be moot anyhow) I keep the client up to date and still dip in on the free trial on occasion as I do WoW. But for me, I much prefer GW2. I find it near the perfect game experience for me... now I don't watch people play it on Twitch as I do other games like DOTA 2 or some others, but then I don't watch people play any MMO.

I got an i3 and a GTS 450, so a very low powered system, but it plays very well and still manages to look nice. The new beta drivers I installed from nVidia seem to favor over heating the card and shutting the machine down, so I had to turn some detail down to stop that, but the game still looks great.

Now I must level up so I can find that frog juicing quest if it is real...

>> ^dirkdeagler7:

Some nice hidden gems in there, like the doors reference
I do think that poking fun at the bible, and the old testament for that matter are seen as more clever than I feel they really are. I mean religious people could make endless videos about some of the most brilliant men in history PROVING to the world something that we now know to be not quite right, and then using them to make the point that science changes its mind and has inconsistency too (is matter points or waves people?)...but what would be the point?
Harping on the lack of logic in a book written by and for people in antiquity is a waste of time, even if the book was divinely inspired why assume that it would be any different than all the other books/literature at that time? If a prophet spouted off things about big bangs and everything being made up of tiny dots that sometimes acted like waves back then...he would have been laughed at or burned!

Have you ever taken the time to look at what the apologists/"sophisticated theologists" of today are on about? Because they do not leave out the OT, even in its worst aspects: http://videosift.com/video/The-Obscenity-of-Christianity-or-Pro-Life

"Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions" Thomas Jefferson (on the concept of Trinity)

They Call Me Trinity.

I love that movie.

>> ^MrFisk:

VideoSift has posted movies from the beginning, and has yet to encounter a lawsuit. Let the copyright holders police themselves. Or just prohibit me from embedding them.
After all, YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR
YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A HANDBAG
YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A TELEVISION
YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A DVD
DOWNLOADING PIRATED FILMS IS STEALING
STEALING IS AGAINST THE LAW
Exhibit A: http://videosift.com/video/They-Call-Me-Trinity-1970-full-movie
Exhibit B: http://videosift.com/video/Easy-Rider-full-movie
Exhibit C: http://videosift.com/video/12-Angry-Men-full-movie
Exhibit D: http://videosift.com/video/Eraserhead-Full-Movie
Ad nauseam.



WATCH IT BITCH!!?? THAT'S ONE OF MY, ER, CHOGGIE'S MOVIES!!!

Don't fuck with the full-flicks, they'll die anyhow once the original source has cratered....
Much ado about nothing??

VideoSift has posted movies from the beginning, and has yet to encounter a lawsuit. Let the copyright holders police themselves. Or just prohibit me from embedding them.

After all, YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR
YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A HANDBAG
YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A TELEVISION
YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A DVD
DOWNLOADING PIRATED FILMS IS STEALING
STEALING IS AGAINST THE LAW

Exhibit A: http://videosift.com/video/They-Call-Me-Trinity-1970-full-movie

Exhibit B: http://videosift.com/video/Easy-Rider-full-movie

Exhibit C: http://videosift.com/video/12-Angry-Men-full-movie

Exhibit D: http://videosift.com/video/Eraserhead-Full-Movie

Ad nauseam.

>> ^shinyblurry:

The definition of person as it applies to God is that of an individual personality, or rational being. I explained it a bit in the last post..
>> ^Ryjkyj


Oh yeah, that was just a long-winded joke about how the holy trinity is the perfect medium for rock/paper/scissors. I always forget that Hamlet said, "brevity is the soul of wit."

>> ^shinyblurry:

It's not three different Gods..it's three persons, one God. There is only one God, and that
God is three persons. How can God be three persons at the same time? Perhaps because He is
hyper-dimensional, although I don't think that would be an adequate description in reality. I think though that the concept itself illuminates the potential differences between His existence and ours.
>> ^Bruti79:
>> ^shinyblurry:
>> ^Bruti79:
>> ^shinyblurry:

Jesus and the Father are not the same person. The Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father, but they are both God. God is three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Wait, so it's a grammatical thing? How did god use improper grammar in the bible?

You could think of it like water..it can be liquid, ice and vapor..but it is still water. That is analogous to the Holy Trinity.

Even in three different states, the same water molecules can't exist in different states at the same time. That's an analogy though. I want to know the true answer. Either it's bad grammar, or how can god be three different things at the same time, when other things can't? What about only worshiping the one true god, when this one is three separate god beings? Why isn't that hypocritical?



Do you mean "persons" like "people?" Of not, what is your definition of a person? If so, if they are people, then it/they/he must sin right? But if so, do they just punish each other for their sins? And if so, do they use paper/rock/scissors? Because I would think that's the most effective way of doing things.

It's not three different Gods..it's three persons, one God. There is only one God, and that
God is three persons. How can God be three persons at the same time? Perhaps because He is
hyper-dimensional, although I don't think that would be an adequate description in reality. I think though that the concept itself illuminates the potential differences between His existence and ours.

>> ^Bruti79:

>> ^shinyblurry:
>> ^Bruti79:
>> ^shinyblurry:

Jesus and the Father are not the same person. The Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father, but they are both God. God is three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Wait, so it's a grammatical thing? How did god use improper grammar in the bible?

You could think of it like water..it can be liquid, ice and vapor..but it is still water. That is analogous to the Holy Trinity.

Even in three different states, the same water molecules can't exist in different states at the same time. That's an analogy though. I want to know the true answer. Either it's bad grammar, or how can god be three different things at the same time, when other things can't? What about only worshiping the one true god, when this one is three separate god beings? Why isn't that hypocritical?