Religion

[Keranu]

There is something I am curious about in evolution and maybe someone here can answer it. If we really did evolve from star matter which evolved into tons of other things eventually leading to monkeys, which are supposedly are closests ancestors, then how come there are still all of these other creatures still living? Shouldn't everything have evolved at one point or how does that work according to the theory? We still have animals living from very long ago, shouldn't they have evolved yet?

[DragonmasterDan]

There is something I am curious about in evolution and maybe someone here can answer it. If we really did evolve from star matter which evolved into tons of other things eventually leading to monkeys, which are supposedly are closests ancestors, then how come there are still all of these other creatures still living? Shouldn't everything have evolved at one point or how does that work according to the theory? We still have animals living from very long ago, shouldn't they have evolved yet?

Well ALL of those creatures aren't still living, many (and in fact most) species of apes (and early man) have become extinct and only a small handful remain alive today.

The idea of natural selection is that life with traits better adapted to its envirionment will be more likely to succeed in competition with others and it will then spread the traits that make it successful to others. Those with the supererior characteristic are better fed and better able to compete and as a result are more likely to breed and pass on these traits to their offspring, this trend continues until those without the new dominant trait fork off and breed only with their own or intermix with the dominant eventually becoming extinct. Many of these animals have evolved but not necessarily in massive steps over the years into their current state today.

 For an animal to become extinct it has to be throughly ravaged by predators, disease, envirionmental or out-competed. In this day in age where we as humans raise livestock and field crops to feed society we don't fight with monkeys for bannanas forcing them to starvation and eventual extinction.

Humans haven't really been competing with apes directly for food and resources for thousands of years. Neanderthals are a good example of what happens when something loses out due to competetion, eventually humans out hunted and out competed neaderthals and ultimately forced them to extinction.

With that said many species of apes are close to extinction due to hunting and poaching not due to being out-done by man.

[ParanoiaDragon]

I'm a Jehovah's Witness.  I became one June 19, 1993.  It's the only religion that's ever made sense to me.  

For instance, we don't celebrate the holidays, why, most of them are pagan in origin.  It doesn't make sense to me, to be a Christian, & celebrate various non-Christian holidays, like Halloween, Christmas, Easter, Valentines days, etc.  

Obvioulsy there's ones like Presidents day that are totally evil, cuz Presidents day was started in worship of the god Hamakas, & the Hamakalites would sacrifice their parents & children, then finally themselves, to commemerate the day that Hamakas came to be.  Needless to say, the Hamakalites died off pretty quick, but somehow the holiday survived these 3, 458 years, 8 months, 3 weeks, 2 days, 14 minutes, & 23 seconds since the first, & last sacrifice to Hamakas

Anyways, seriously now, another thing I don't believe in is a fiery burning hell, since the Bible doesn't teach that there is one.  Infact, the Bible even says that the soul that is sinning, it itself will die.  And everyone, including myself, is a sinner, we all make mistakes, so I believe our souls die, not live on in torment in hell, or in some imaginary bliss on a cloud.  As it is, the original meaning of the word sheol(hell) just means the common man's grave.  It teaches, that after Armageddon, there will be a ressurection of the righteous AND the unrighteous.  And there would be a 1000 year reign of peace & tranquility, where we grow towards perfection, but there will be some, that won't even try to be good, & they will perish.

I obvioulsy don't celebrate birthdays, mainly because, there's 2 examples in the Bible, involving birthdays, & they both ended up in disaster.  And it's interesting, recently, my brother in law & wife were doing research on birthdays, & it looks like there was a pagan background to the cake & candles.  As a Christian, it's amazing how many things have survived from Babylon, among other pagan nations.

I also believe the Bible doesn't teach that God, Christ, & the holy spirit are one.  From what I understand, God is the Father, 1 entity, Jesus, is his son(who actually prayed to God, if he were God, why would he pray to himself), & the holy spirit, is just God's power, or his active force.

When I think of more, that seperates my beliefs from other Christians, I'll write them down, but I gotta head over to Trader Joe's.

Oh yeah, nobody knows the day or the hour of Armageddon, not even the Son, only the Father.  So nobody, can say for sure, an exact date of when it will happen(even though I'm sure there are JW's that have made that mistake before, I don't expect perfection).  Also, there are things the Bible was right about, a loooooooong time before anybody ever discovered them.  Like the world being a sphere, & it hanging from nothing, as opposed to the views of it being flat, or on a turtles back, etc.  Also there were things the Jews, & later Christians were required to do, to keep them from getting sick, because other nations, still hadn't figured out how diseases were spread.  That's another reason why I believe in the Bible.  Not to mention, the state things are in now worldwide, are exactly as the Bible predicted.  Infact, I believe soon, religion is pretty much going to disapear.  That's what the Bible predicts, because the beast, will turn on Babylon the Great.  The beast is the governments, & Babylon the Great is the worlds religions, which has been commiting fornication with the nations(think about things like the Pope supporting Hitler).  So, I don't expect religion to be as free as it is, soon.

Ok, another thing, when the Bible says to fear God, it doesn't mean in a morbid way.  It means to fear displeasing him, letting him down.  Like how you wouldn't want to make your mate sad, or you brother, or friend, etc.  Fearing God sounds totally reasonable from that standpoint.  He truly is a God of love.  If you think he was wrathful in the Hebrew scriptures, it's because he always had a reason for destroying certain nations, that goes without saying, but I said it anyways   Plus, like I said before, there is no eternal torment(which I consider very unloving).  Even the references to Gehenna & the lake of fire are not literal.  Nor is Jesus actually going to physically come down with the clouds, during the 2nd coming, which alot of people believe, he will litteraly apear before everyone to see in some kind of physical form.  

Also, I believe God does not send someone to hell, if they don't get baptized, etc.  Baptism is a person's choice.  We weren't made as robots without a free will.  God gave us free will, & allows us to make our own descisions.  If we decide it is right to serve him, he is pleased ofcoarse.  And another thing that bothers me about some religions, is that they teach that God goes around making things happen.  Like when someone says that God has taken your baby.  No, the Bible states that time & unforeseen occurance befall us all.  That's not to say he never helps us.  And even then, I believe we need to take care of ourselves, & not expect divine intervention, like he's going to just wipe someones debt clean, or miraculously save someones life.  Not that it doesn't happen, but "faith without works is dead".  In otherwords, we can't just get along in life by faith alone, we have to actually work for what we want.  And if what we want is also what he wants, then he may help us.  But when he does help us, it's not always right away from our standpoint.  He is a being that's been around forever, timeless, so time is different to him.  And even then, that doesn't mean he helps you in the way you are expecting.  But I give God credit all the time in the dealing of my life.

Some are more obvious, like me finding my wife.  Both of us had problems with depression, & were going thru alot of problems, but we both believe that God brought us together, because we ended up helping eachother.  It's alot more complicated then that ofcoarse, but that's 1 example when I deffinitly give God credit.  Another is when we almost lost my mom, & some very strange & you might actually say miraculous things happened, all by chance, but I give him credit anyways.

[ParanoiaDragon]

Oh yeah, & I'm no judge, but, I'm pretty sure every TV envangelist is in it for a quick buck(or many quick bucks the way so many people fall for that stuff )

Oh, one interesting thing, back when I was in high school, my science teacher tought evolution as a theory, along with creation as a theory!  That was a great class, since it wasn't one sided!  When it came to evolution, my answer's were always "the book says that such & such came to be via....".  I'll never forget that

BTW, some other things.  I don't believe in creationism, no Jehovah's Witness does(unless they don't know what it means).  Creationism, unless I'm wrong, is that the world was made in 7 literal human days.  I don't believe that.  I believe that those 7 days could of been thousands of years long.  What is a day to God?  Pretty fricken long, if you ask me!  Heck, we don't even know for sure how old the earth is, in the begining, before the 7 creative days, the earth was formless & void.  So how long was it sitting there before those days?  No one knows an exact date, but, it shows that this world is older then 6000+ years(with us still be in the 7th day, the day of rest).

Also, if anyone thinks were a cult, or a sect.  Your both wrong.  We don't follow any human(I don't even know who it'd be that we follow).  We just follow God, plain & simple.  As for being a sect, once again, we're not.  The original guy who basically started the JW's checked out several religions, but ended up doing his own studying with some people, which got bigger & bigger over the years.  I mean, if we're a sect, then so is every single Christian religion, including Catholic's, since the Catholic's were not the first Christian religion.  They were just Christians, period.  And even then, they could be considered a sect from the Jew's, since you could say they sectioned off from them.

Another thing I thought of.  For some odd reason, people that believe in evolution, have this notion that it's not possible for someone to believe in aliens, if they believe in creation.  Once again, your wrong.  I believe it's possible for aliens to exist.  Where in the Bible does it say that they don't?  Nowhere.  God could've created countless worlds in countless solar systems, etc.  Filled with alien life, we don't know for sure.  I personally don't think they exist, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong, since like I said, there's nothing to say that they don't.

[ParanoiaDragon]

I'm a little late on this thread but the whole Intelligent Design thing quite frankly bothers me as well. We can prove Evolution, can we prove the exact steps every living creature has taken to get to where it is today? No. Does that give any creedence at all to teaching Intelligent Design, NO. It's totally based on theory and faith. Something which obviously does not belong in the classroom.

I can say the exact same thing about evolution, that it's all based on faith & theory, while the Bible is based on hardcore fact.  There's really no faith involved in believing in intelligent design.  BTW, I also believe that it's possible for evolution in one's own kind.  But fish, can't evolve into a monkey.

[GUTS]

Paranoia that was interesting, personally I've always thought jehovah's witness's were a little crazy and WAY over zealous with the not-celebrating-birthdays-or-holidays thing, but it was really cool to read your thoughts on stuff since most of it I can understand where you're coming from after you laid it out.  I love reading personal testamonials of what people believe in, it really makes a lot more sense when you hear it from an individual who really believes it as opposed to just reading about a religion's doctrine or belief systm in general.

[Keranu]

Ahh, I was waiting for your post here, Paranoia since I knew you were religious, just had no idea you were a Jehova! I always just thought you were a hardcore Catholic or something. You made a nice post and I now know and respect Jehova's Witnesses more now because of it. I didn't know you guys were the kind of people who prefer to just strictly believe in god, which is a reason why I love Islam because with Islam you don't need to contact with the holy ghost to talk to god, or use Hindu statues, or do anything like that; all you must do is pray to Allah and Allah only, nothing else. God is the most important part and should be what you're supposed to focus on most. Of course I love Islam for many other reasons, but this is just one nice one to point out.

[ParanoiaDragon]

Yeah, people always have the wrong idea about us.  But, I try to just live my life, treating people with respect(though, I'm imperfect, so I can lose my cool), & let them see that I'm actually a decent guy.  I'm sure there are some Witnesses that are really wierd, & ones that are fake Witnesses(people, usually teenager's, that pretend to be a JW, just to get with some girl, or to make their parents happy, which is NOT a reason to be of any religion).  And I'm sure plenty of people meet some of those JW's & get the wrong idea, then they play the telephone game(I met a Witness, who doesn't do such & such........purple monkey dishwasher).

And we do believe Jesus is important, just that, he is not God, but God's son, 2 totally seperate entities.  It does say to pray thru Jesus, to Jehovah, so like at the end of my prayer, I'll say in your son's name, or thru Jesus Christ, & then say amen.  But we do not pray TO Jesus.  That'd be pointless & probably considered blasphemous, since he ain't God.

[Keranu]

That's cool though because God is what counts. Islam believes and respects Jesus as well as the prophet he was, which is something quite a few people don't seem to know.

[TR0N]

No body expects the spanish inquisition!

oops my bad derailed thread

[GUTS]

HAHA I loved those Spanish Inquisition skits, awesome stuff.

[esteban]

HAHA I loved those Spanish Inquisition skits, awesome stuff.

fluffy pillows!

[ParanoiaDragon]

Oh, since nobody mentioned it, I'll just make sure everyone know I was kidding as to the origin of Presidents day, with Hamakas & the Hamakalites.

[DragonmasterDan]

I can say the exact same thing about evolution, that it's all based on faith & theory, while the Bible is based on hardcore fact.  There's really no faith involved in believing in intelligent design.  BTW, I also believe that it's possible for evolution in one's own kind.  But fish, can't evolve into a monkey.

There's faith involved in intelligence design in the sense that you believe some inteligent force designed everything. That's why there is so much of a controversy about it.

Also the idea of evolution isn't that monkey's evolved from fish, it's a gradual process over million and even billions of years that can quite easily be studied by looking at things like genetic evidence of how related various types of animals are. There is scientific fact behind evolution, is every single step between every living creature known. No, and it never will be due to the fact that a lot of the fossil records are lost in the seas of time. But the basic concept of evolution is more than just theory, the steps that evolution has gone through over the years as I said aren't totally known. But most of evolution is fact. There isn't any idea of "faith" behind the fact that humans and apes are related for example.

I won't that some of what is taught regarding evolution can't totally be proven and is theory, but the basic principle behind it (that animals evolved from more simple animals basically by mutation of traits which became beneficial via natural selection) is scientific fact beyond a reasonable doubt.

[ParanoiaDragon]

I have no doubt & no problem knowing that humans & apes have some of the same genes or whatever, I still say, from my point of view that takes alot of faith to believe that's our ancestor.  I know the theory isn't fish to apes, I was just shortening it.  Lot's of animals have similar traits & genes & whatever, that's fine, that still doesn't say to me, we must've come from this, that came from that, etc.  And just so you know, I'm not trying to be insulting or even debate really, I'm just speaking from my POV, what I believe  

As for intelligent design, I don't need faith to know God is there, everything on earth, shows me that there is a designer, whether it be a computer, with a human designer, or a flower with a heavenly designer.