@Flutterbee It's like a phrase I've saw in a movie from my country... "Who would know that there was life after the life?" @Simon Well, as a Christian you're doing a good job I suppose :derpe:
To enjoy life while you can. I mean, who wants to die? There is none. It's just wonderful to have it. Explosions of matter. The scientists will figure it out in due time. You die, and feel nothing. You're unconscious. You simply wouldn't care about being in a 'bleak void', if one exists. Just going to point this out: Many, many parts of the Bible are flawed. If your God truly wrote it, why would he lie to us? And that ends my rant in response to that rant.
What part of the bible are flawed Testyal? I'm not offended or anything. I just want to accept this as a challenge, it will be fun for me as I will get to study my bible more. And I'm sure it will be interesting for you to read the answers I come up with, regardless of whether you believe all this or not.
Bible - In my opinion, I don't think everything in the Bible actually happened, you know like the story of Adam and Eve and everything because that would be plain impossible and unlikely. However, I think the ideals are the same. Adam and Eve may not be mother and father to everyone, but we should all act like brothers and sisters to one another as if we were a family. The Bible may not be hard fact, but instead a collective tale of symbolistic stories. Noah probably didn't build an Ark and the whole world was flooded, but the point is in that story is that one day all the sin and hate in the world will be washed away and we can all start anew. Jesus might not have been the Son of God (sorry, bit of blasphemy there :/) but he still stood for good and kindness. The Bible may not be the solid truth, but it is a moral compass in a sense.
This is the only part of your post I will respond to because it is the only part that affects others. For the rest of it you can believe whatever you want as long as you aren't forcing it on other people. In this part though you justify forcing your beliefs on others claiming it is your job. No it is not your job. Nobody hired you to do this. You do it because you want to. Saying that your god mandated you to do this is using your religion to justify any action you take. It is the same thing that terrorists do to justify murder and rape. What you are doing may not be as extreme, but it is still wrong. Now I respect you as a person and as a brony and I respect your choice of religious. I do not respect any claim that yours is the only way and that you are obligated to tell everyone about it and try to convert them. I want to say that I used to do the same thing. I was once a member of a cult called New Testament Christian church (I'm not claiming that all Christian churches are cults, but this one was. I'd say most are not but some are). They like to target the military and force everyone to go "soul winning" trying to get as many people to join the cult as possible. If you do not you are going to hell. It took awhile for me to learn the wrongs of my ways and eventually find the 3 main things I mentioned in my previous post. These views came because I opened my eyes, my mind, and my heart. In the open though is not a good place to go over this though. If you want to know more about my religious past and my findings I'd be happy to chat with you. Just know that I will not be converted back to Christianity no matter what. You can't convert the already converted.
I think you go to live a new life in a place you've allways wanted to go. It's hard to explain.. heh. I'm actually curious, bit I think I'll wait a few years though! Since we have feelings, personalities, minds, I don't think we just die and then it's done, I think when we "fall asleep" we fall into a long, very realistic dream, and if we want to we go on with another life. But still, if we just moved on to live in a new person, nobody would be you know, special. Yeah, it's still hard to explain what I mean. It looks better in my head.
I'll start by saying I don't follow any religion. But trying to look at the big picture, each religion seems to believe something different. My take on the situation is to wonder if they could all be right? Is there an explanation for all the different beliefs? I believe that there is. My conclusion is that there is an afterlife. The mind is a powerful thing, so it could have the power to create such an afterlife, whether it be heaven or hell. I prefer to call it our own personal little paradise. Think about it, space and time are infinite. And what about dimensions that run parallel to us? Perhaps this can be described by the light and dark worlds in the Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past, except imagine an infinite number of parallel dimensions. Perhaps there's a dimension that each of us controls, as a god-like figure. When we get bored, we can decide to be reincarnated. Of course, we'd know that by doing this it would wipe our memory and we'd have to start from scratch, but that's what makes it so interesting.
Well I can see your point. But that is not what I meant. Of course no one hired me to do this. I am also not forcing my religion on others I am simply stating my beliefs (Remember I said that they could choose whether to believe it or not) and to be honest I quite enjoy doing it The one thing that I disagree with is saying that me preaching my religion is wrong. I mean if we weren't allowed to preach or at least state our opinion on it where would religion be? Lots of people of all religions preach and state their beliefs. The part where it becomes wrong is when they start forcing it on others. I was not forcing it on everyone here. I was stating my belief like everyone else only I was going into a little more detail. As much as I enjoy talking to others about my religion I won't let it get between any brony and I. We are still friends no matter what And I'm glad to have met all you awesome people /) :derpe:
My religion simply states that I only ask for others to accept me for who I am and that I do the same for others even if they do not believe in my religion. Not to mention I will not try to convert you if you do not wish to follow my religion. You are who you are and I will not be the one to make you different.
I will brohoof you back (\ I won't let different religious beliefs get in the way of anything either. I guess I react a bit stronger because of my background on this. You certainly are not as forceful as many I come across and the only way I've found to deal with them is to be firm with them to make them back down.
Well no hard feelings then! I don't like fighting with people and the last thing I want is to fight with a fellow brony. *hugs Flutterbee* I'm glad we're still friends.
It is why I don't agree with that idea of avoiding religious topics at all costs. When two level headed individuals that have different viewpoints are willing to talk about their views and believe in them, yet accept the other persons views, it can actually have a bonding effect. You and I, though not seeing eye to eye, have become better friends because of this.
I don't believe religion will automatically make you good and as an atheist, I often offended when people ask me "what keeps you from doing bad things". I don't do bad things because I'm an intelligent, rational ape that has evolved compassion and empathy for otherse. Fear of god shouldn't be a reason to keep someone in line. People should want to be good because it's what they want, not because they fear punishment and we all know plenty of bad things have been done by people waving the religion flag so questioning a non-believers morality is ridiculous. This is a good article discussing morality in evolution and is quite interesting: http://www.newscientist.com/article...s-accepting-evolution-undermines-morality.htm "Live a good life. If there are gods & they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones." Marcus Aurelius
