Stephen Hawking:'There is NO heaven; it's a fairy story'- HAHHA

[OTHstrong]

As I stated earlier, I am proud to admit that I don't know what is out there.  People that claim to know either way are flat out wrong.  "Faith" is not fact!  I enjoy both sides of the arguement, knowing that none of us really know for sure.

Fair enough

[Natural Man]

the only thing we ''know'' is that we are designed to do anything we can to survive, even if it means killing someone else to do so.

A thought, is the sum of previous thoughts that fought each others until a new thought has been spawned, it is called ''reasoning'' or ''reason''. Reason in itself is a strategy of survival, it s a process that automatically makes us calculate, compare, thoughts, informations mix them, delete some, keep other -there are dominant thoughts that kills other thoughts- to insure the survival of your own body / brain, in order to allow it to reproduce before dying. Once an offspring is produced, our automatic goal becomes to protect it and teach it how to defend itself until it can, too, reproduce.

Our thoughts are informations recorded by our ears, eyes, nose, skin , that are recorded in our brain depending of what, who we ve been exposed to. It means that if any of us were born in afghanistan we would believe in allah. We are just recorders which calculates constantly how to use the informations to insure our own survival even if at the expense of others. This is why we often feel better seeing someone in troubles , with lower chances of survival than us; it makes us feel good because we know we have higher chances of survival. We are designed to feel happy when our chances of survival seem good, and unhappy when they seem to decrease. We are designed to love in order to reproduce or protect ourselves, and to hate, fear, attack, to defend our own physical and psychological integrity or the one of our offsprings when we have one. We are not designed to be constantly happy. we are designed to use different strategies of survival depending of the environment and random events happening inr our life.




natural selection and the elusiveness of hapiness

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1693419/pdf/15347525.pdf

[King Shizzo]

I used to doubt any existence of an afterlife untill  I picked up a crystal clear EVP of my closest friend several months after she had died. This was not some random static or garbled voice..she clearly responded to my question and I picked it up on a tape recorder. Since I have no other plausible explanation for picking up her voice, I am fairly certain there is some sort of life after death. I'm sure no one on here will belive me, but I honestly couldn't care less.

very interesting...... That would certainly raise questions no doubt.

[loco]

Name one famous christian scientist who has prove his IQ is above 100. There is none. Religion is for idiots with no brains at all. Try to live with that fact.

It has been proven that whole chapters of the bible have been removed/added to serve the agenda of the church.  Now, if the bible was directly from the mouth of god, he sure does change his mind often  

A lot of ignorance being displayed in this thread.  

[King Shizzo]

A lot of ignorance being displayed in this thread.  

Do you claim to know for a fact that there is a god?  Do you think it is wrong for people to question the existence of life?

[loco]

Do you claim to know for a fact that there is a god?  Do you think it is wrong for people to question the existence of life?

What does your question have to do with my statement about these ignorant claims?

Name one famous christian scientist who has prove his IQ is above 100. There is none. Religion is for idiots with no brains at all. Try to live with that fact.

It has been proven that whole chapters of the bible have been removed/added to serve the agenda of the church.  Now, if the bible was directly from the mouth of god, he sure does change his mind often 

[OTHstrong]

Bro, I actually love it when they are ignorant... A reaction of any sort means at least they care.

[King Shizzo]

What does your question have to do with my statement about these ignorant claims?

The bible was supposed to be directly from the mouth of god. Why would the book not be intact exactly as it was written 2,000 years ago? Why would it even change slightly?  To even omit/re-arrange a few words/paragraphs etc..... would be blasphemy. Right?

[Man of Steel]

The bible has been changed over the course of 2,000+ years.  Most of it was probably done in the early middle ages to solidify the churches stance.  I know there was supposed to be among other things passages about Mary being a Prostitute etc....The Catholics removed some chapters from their bible, including the part where Jesus tells us to stop confessing our sins to the priests but to confess to Him instead. That's why that is one of the major differences between Catholocism and most other Christ-based religions.

 The Catholic Bible also includes some books (Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and I & II Maccabees) which other Bibles don't include because their authority/validity is often questioned. sense.

  

I will consult my apologetic sources and get that all important context around some of these issues.....so rarely am I disappointed LOL!!  I love learning about stuff like this.

5 minutes of Google later LOL:

The Apocrypha consists of a set of books written between approximately 400 B.C. and the time of Christ.  The word "apocrypha" (απόκρυφα) means "Hidden."  These books consist of 1 and 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, the Rest of Esther, the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, (also titled Ecclesiasticus), Baruch, The Letter of Jeremiah, Song of the Three Young Men, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, The Additions to Daniel, The Prayer of Manasseh, and 1 and 2 Maccabees.

The Protestant Church rejects the apocrypha as being inspired, as do the Jews, but in 1546 the Roman Catholic Church officially declared some of the apocryphal books to belong to the canon of scripture.  These are Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (also known as Ecclesiasticus), and Baruch.  The apocryphal books are written in Greek, not Hebrew (except for Ecclesiasticus, 1 Maccabees, a part of Judith, and Tobit), and contain some useful historical information.

Is the Apocrypha Scripture?  Protestants deny its inspiration but the Roman Catholic Church affirms it.  In order to ascertain whether it is or isn't, we need to look within its pages.

Not quoted in the New Testament
First of all, neither Jesus nor the apostles ever quoted from the Apocrypha. There are over 260 quotations of the Old Testament in the New Testament, and not one of them is from these books.  Nevertheless, a Roman Catholic might respond by saying that there are several Old Testament books that are not quoted in the New Testament, i.e., Joshua, Judges, Esther, etc.  Does this mean that they aren't inspired either?  But, these books had already been accepted into the canon by the Jews, where the Apocrypha had not.  The Jews recognized the Old Testament canon and they did not include the Apocrypha in it.  This is significant because of what Paul says:

"Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the benefit of circumcision?  2 Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God," (Rom. 3:1-2).
Paul tells us that the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.  This means that they are the ones who understood what inspired Scriptures were and they never accepted the Apocrypha.

Jesus' references the Old Testament: from Abel to Zechariah
Jesus referenced the Jewish Old Testament canon from the beginning to the end and did not include the Apocrypha in his reference. "From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the house of God; yes, I tell you, it shall be charged against this generation,’" (Luke 11:51).

"The traditional Jewish canon was divided into three sections (Law, Prophets, Writings), and an unusual feature of the last section was the listing of Chronicles out of historical order, placing it after Ezra-Nehemiah and making it the last book of the canon. In light of this, the words of Jesus in Luke 11:50-51 reflect the settled character of the Jewish canon (with its peculiar order) already in his day. Christ uses the expression "from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah," which appears troublesome since Zechariah was not chronologically the last martyr mentioned in the Bible (cf. Jer. 26:20-23). However, Zechariah is the last martyr of which we read in the Old Testament according to Jewish canonical order (cf. II Chron. 24:20-22), which was apparently recognized by Jesus and his hearers."1
This means that the same Old Testament canon, according to the Jewish tradition, is arranged differently than how we have it in the Protestant Bible today.  This was the arrangement to which Jesus was referring when he referenced Abel and Zechariah, the first and last people to have their blood shed -- as listed in the Old Testament Jewish canon. Obviously, Jesus knew of the Apocrypha and was not including it in his reference.

Jesus references the Old Testament: The Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms
Catholics sometimes respond by saying that the Old Testament is referred to in three parts: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.  It is these writings that are sometimes said to include the Apocrypha.  But this designation is not found in the Bible.  On the contrary, Jesus referenced the Old Testament and designated its three parts as the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, not as the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.

"Now He said to them, "These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled," (Luke 24:44).
So we see that the designation offered by the Roman Catholics is not the same designation found in the Bible and their argument is invalid as their argument is incorrect.  Nevertheless, even if it did say "writings" it would not include the Apocrypha for the above-mentioned reasons.

Church Fathers
Did the Church fathers recognized the Apocrypha as being Scripture?  Roman Catholics strongly appeal to Church history but we don't find a unanimous consensus on the Apocrypha.  Jerome (340-420) who translated the Latin Vulgate which is used by the RC church, rejected the Apocrypha since he believed that the Jews recognized and established the proper canon of the Old Testament. Remember, the Christian Church built upon that recognition. Also, Josephus the famous Jewish historian of the First Century never mentioned the Apocrypha as being part of the canon either. In addition, "Early church fathers like Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, and the great Roman Catholic translator Jerome spoke out against the Apocrypha."2 So, we should not conclude that the Church fathers unanimously affirmed the Apocrypha.  They didn't.

I suppose the gist is that the exclusion is due in part to the Apocrypha being considered the unspired word of God since it wasn't part of the accepted Hebrew canon and a was a seperate Greek canon.  The Catholic church includes it, but my profession of faith is in God and I follow his inspired word.  I'm not a Catholic, but I do know that the exclusion of the Apocrypha has no bearing on salvation in Christ or his resurrection.

[Ropo]

I don't think this is the case at all and couldn't disagree more. But I think it's great that you've come up with an opinion.

Why we have this topic about Stephen Hawking and his opinion about religion? Because opinion of the known genius has frighten you guys, and whole bunch of sorry ass rednecks has come running to speak on behalf of the god and all of them want to crucify Hawking, because he does not believe in God. Well, give me one prove there is a god, one thing you can't explain by evolution theory or some other scientific theory or proven scientific fact. I know there isn't any, and never will be. They can't prove one single thing, so they say:"we don't need prove anything, all we need is our faith". Pretty easy way out, while world scientist can explain and prove just about every little incident which has happen after big bang. They can even prove there has been big bang, but Christians? NOT EVEN SINGLE THING.

You believe that man is made of dirt of the earth, but there is also skeletons of our ancestors all the way up to these days from the day when we step down from the tree and start walk up straight. You believe that god make world in seven days, but still there is calendars older than the history from the creation. You believe that god was angry and use flood to get rid of unwanted people, and Noah make ark and save two of every kind. At least here you have to smell bullshit.

When you read the bible, you have to understand it is written to be bed time story for adults, nothing more, and people has given it the status which it has these days. It is only a book, nothing more, and every religion has their own version of it.  Who decided which is right one? Would it be nice if Muslims has the only original god and holy book? You know, there is only one god, but which one it is? How about Jehovah's Witnesses? Their religion has born 1870, so it is quite young religion, but not youngest. There is thousands of religions and they have one common denominator. None of then can't prove anything.
If you look Mayas or Indians, their religion is older than Christianity, but in your point of view they must be wrong, because Christianity is only true religion, no matter if it has been made up few thousand years after Mayas and Indians start serve their gods. Christians, Muslims etc.  doesn't like scientist because scientist know that all religions are based on lies, and they can prove it.

Do you guys think at all? When child is molested, Christians say "that was Gods will". When guilty rapist manage to escape the law by his layer, Christians say, "he will pay afterlife". When he molested another child, they say "unexplored are the ways of the Lord", and when the rapist get his sentence, they say "thank God".  So why all this grief and sorrow for the innocent child? If God want to get even with the rapist, why he doesn't just nip the bastard of the face of the earth. Why there is a rapist? Why God put evil thoughts in this mans head, while he has the power to prevent all evil things among the people?

There is no god, but instead of that there is a species of ape called homo sapiens. All evil comes from that, we are animals and constantly fighting for the space for living, money, goods, pussy and food.

[wild willie]

weren't you and jezzebelle once kids?

[wild willie]

Buffett is a man I respect for his business accomplishments, but the guy is a well known tight wad.....and has done very little for his hometown of Omaha.

[OTHstrong]

No one considers the apocrypha part of the Bible. If thats the change anyone here is referring to then they are sadly mistaken. Over 2000 years nothing has changed in the Bible, the dead sea scrolls prove that.

Man of Steel you should read the apocrypha, good read anyway, the book of enoch and the book of Jasher, non contradict the Bible.

[lovemonkey]

No one considers the apocrypha part of the Bible. If thats the change anyone here is referring to then they are sadly mistaken. Over 2000 years nothing has changed in the Bible, the dead sea scrolls prove that.

Man of Steel you should read the apocrypha, good read anyway, the book of enoch and the book of Jasher, non contradict the Bible.

Found the wandering jew yet?

[Reeves]

yup. when asked what was the most important thing, if we could only know one thing. jesus said there is one god and love your neighbor. and that sums it up.

 there is no reason to abstain from any pleasure that one desires, just dont hurt anybody else in the process.

Heavens to Buddha!  You are one ignorant, perverted little butt-slut.  

[Agnostic007]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to suggest you were a bad person.   We're all broken sinners....every one of us.

No, it suggests that the only reason I don't share your personal belief is because I don't want to be held accountable for my bad actions to this god you believe in somewhere down the road. That paints a picture that you are somehow more moral and courageous because you are willing to believe in said God and face the music if need be.

Now I know you probably weren't aware that you were saying that, but that is the translation. It minimizes my personal belief or lack of belief in your belief by putting a negative spin on it rather than accept that I may just not share your belief because the evidence isn't there to support your belief in my opinion..

[Agnostic007]

Which chapters out of which book of the bible have been added or removed and who has proven this?  Now, there is debate over verses at the end of Mark that some early biblical manuscripts contain that others do not; hence, most current publications of the bible footnote this.  Most folks don't read the footnotes though.  For example, the height of Goliath has been debated, but footnoting addresses these subtle differences.  None of the debate or differences changes the idea of salvation through Christ or his resurrection. 

Aside from Mark, if I recall correctly, back in the day, the Catholics held councils in Nicea around the 4th century. During these meetings they would vote on which manuscripts to include in what we know as the old testament today. They may have messed up..

Why would I say that? Well, they excluded one that was discovered in the dead sea scrolls. Can't recall the name of the manuscript off the top of my head, but it was also referred to in the old testament by the Arch Angel Michael.

[Agnostic007]

Actually, people don't want the bible to be true.

You are half right...
Im glad the old testament isnt true.

I can only speak for myself. I've read the old testament.. more than a couple times over the years.. not just the good parts... and if a God like that really existed... we're all fu****.  He was cranky, jealous, angry, allowed Job to be hosed to prove a point, allowed Moses and his men to rape the mindianite women and keep the virgins for themselves after killing the children.. the list goes on.... Then, if I KNEW a god existed who claimed to know the hairs on your head, would answer prayers if you had faith and asked, and this god allowed 4 yr old children to be continously raped by their uncle Bob till they committed suicide... yeah I would have a problem "worshipping" such a god.

I wish the New testament was true. Because I would love to look at the faces of all those righteous christians who when judgement day came, Jesus surprised them with the old "Get thee away from me, " because they forgot to read Matthew's parable about the goats and the sheep and while they went to church, and talked about Jesus, they never lifted a finger to help out others in need.

But thats just me..  

Ag Approved  

[Nirvana]

I will consult my apologetic sources and get that all important context around some of these issues.....so rarely am I disappointed LOL!!  I love learning about stuff like this.

5 minutes of Google later LOL:

The Apocrypha consists of a set of books written between approximately 400 B.C. and the time of Christ.  The word "apocrypha" (απόκρυφα) means "Hidden."  These books consist of 1 and 2 Esdras, Tobit, Judith, the Rest of Esther, the Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, (also titled Ecclesiasticus), Baruch, The Letter of Jeremiah, Song of the Three Young Men, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, The Additions to Daniel, The Prayer of Manasseh, and 1 and 2 Maccabees.

The Protestant Church rejects the apocrypha as being inspired, as do the Jews, but in 1546 the Roman Catholic Church officially declared some of the apocryphal books to belong to the canon of scripture.  These are Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach (also known as Ecclesiasticus), and Baruch.  The apocryphal books are written in Greek, not Hebrew (except for Ecclesiasticus, 1 Maccabees, a part of Judith, and Tobit), and contain some useful historical information.

Is the Apocrypha Scripture?  Protestants deny its inspiration but the Roman Catholic Church affirms it.  In order to ascertain whether it is or isn't, we need to look within its pages.

Not quoted in the New Testament
First of all, neither Jesus nor the apostles ever quoted from the Apocrypha. There are over 260 quotations of the Old Testament in the New Testament, and not one of them is from these books.  Nevertheless, a Roman Catholic might respond by saying that there are several Old Testament books that are not quoted in the New Testament, i.e., Joshua, Judges, Esther, etc.  Does this mean that they aren't inspired either?  But, these books had already been accepted into the canon by the Jews, where the Apocrypha had not.  The Jews recognized the Old Testament canon and they did not include the Apocrypha in it.  This is significant because of what Paul says:

"Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the benefit of circumcision?  2 Great in every respect. First of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God," (Rom. 3:1-2).
Paul tells us that the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.  This means that they are the ones who understood what inspired Scriptures were and they never accepted the Apocrypha.

Jesus' references the Old Testament: from Abel to Zechariah
Jesus referenced the Jewish Old Testament canon from the beginning to the end and did not include the Apocrypha in his reference. "From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the house of God; yes, I tell you, it shall be charged against this generation,’" (Luke 11:51).

"The traditional Jewish canon was divided into three sections (Law, Prophets, Writings), and an unusual feature of the last section was the listing of Chronicles out of historical order, placing it after Ezra-Nehemiah and making it the last book of the canon. In light of this, the words of Jesus in Luke 11:50-51 reflect the settled character of the Jewish canon (with its peculiar order) already in his day. Christ uses the expression "from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah," which appears troublesome since Zechariah was not chronologically the last martyr mentioned in the Bible (cf. Jer. 26:20-23). However, Zechariah is the last martyr of which we read in the Old Testament according to Jewish canonical order (cf. II Chron. 24:20-22), which was apparently recognized by Jesus and his hearers."1
This means that the same Old Testament canon, according to the Jewish tradition, is arranged differently than how we have it in the Protestant Bible today.  This was the arrangement to which Jesus was referring when he referenced Abel and Zechariah, the first and last people to have their blood shed -- as listed in the Old Testament Jewish canon. Obviously, Jesus knew of the Apocrypha and was not including it in his reference.

Jesus references the Old Testament: The Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms
Catholics sometimes respond by saying that the Old Testament is referred to in three parts: the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.  It is these writings that are sometimes said to include the Apocrypha.  But this designation is not found in the Bible.  On the contrary, Jesus referenced the Old Testament and designated its three parts as the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, not as the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings.

"Now He said to them, "These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled," (Luke 24:44).
So we see that the designation offered by the Roman Catholics is not the same designation found in the Bible and their argument is invalid as their argument is incorrect.  Nevertheless, even if it did say "writings" it would not include the Apocrypha for the above-mentioned reasons.

Church Fathers
Did the Church fathers recognized the Apocrypha as being Scripture?  Roman Catholics strongly appeal to Church history but we don't find a unanimous consensus on the Apocrypha.  Jerome (340-420) who translated the Latin Vulgate which is used by the RC church, rejected the Apocrypha since he believed that the Jews recognized and established the proper canon of the Old Testament. Remember, the Christian Church built upon that recognition. Also, Josephus the famous Jewish historian of the First Century never mentioned the Apocrypha as being part of the canon either. In addition, "Early church fathers like Origen, Cyril of Jerusalem, Athanasius, and the great Roman Catholic translator Jerome spoke out against the Apocrypha."2 So, we should not conclude that the Church fathers unanimously affirmed the Apocrypha.  They didn't.

I suppose the gist is that the exclusion is due in part to the Apocrypha being considered the unspired word of God since it wasn't part of the accepted Hebrew canon and a was a seperate Greek canon.  The Catholic church includes it, but my profession of faith is in God and I follow his inspired word.  I'm not a Catholic, but I do know that the exclusion of the Apocrypha has no bearing on salvation in Christ or his resurrection.

Jesus must have said all this cause it's in red words

[Natural Man]

weren't you and jezzebelle once kids?

kids who werent loved , and as a results adults who cannot love anyone but each others and find kids ''disgusting''. There s an origin to everything. If there's smoke, there's a fire.

There just one funny little thing to be noticed here tho...

they both preferentially selected each others because they shared similar personality traits; they re both despicable , pretentious traumatized people who find confort in hugging each others while thinking everyone else is an asshole. They both selected each others because they re...the same. True anus is looking for his mother in her, and she s looking for her father in him. They re both self centered on their hobbies -whatever they are- and do not want to reproduce because kids are disgusting, and...subconsciouly...ad opt... DOGS and raise them as if they were... kids.

BUT WHY ARE THEY TOGETHER IN THE FIRST PLACE THEN CONSIDERING THEY BOTH LOOKED FOR A PARTNER ULTIMATELY TO SPAWN AN OFFSPRING? Because in reality they both want kids, thats why they re together utlimately,but they fear that if they have kids, they wont know what to teach them considering they both havent been loved by their own parents. They fear to reproduce what their parents did to them. At some point tho even if true anus stays in a state of constant immaturity and psychological underdevelopment, jezebele will want kids.


Aldo naouri says we re all here to repair what our parents  broke and that nobody can escape this reality.
We all inherit both good and bad stuff from our parents. Good inflluences, good patterns to follow mostly subconsciously, and bad ones. And it s up to us to figure what s going on and repair it. The more our parents did their job trying to better themselves, the more children will simply have to focus on growing up and listening to them. All our current troubles originate in the unsolved troubles we inherited from our genitors, this is an absolute, scientific? law. No wonder all religions came to the conclusion life always repeat itself and developed the concepts of karma, of causes and consequences. More than often, a personal life problem isnt even yours, but is just an echo from a unresolved trouble that occured in one or both of your parents life. We reproduce what we ve been exposed to when we were young, what we recorded on our brain, our harddrive... Once we re adults we trigger facing similar life events the patterns our genitors followed, subconsciously. You cannot reproduce what you didnt learn, you can only repeat what you ve learned, subconsciouly. It means that you always have to understand what your parents attempted to hide, because it s going to bite you back in your own life. From one generation, to another.

Just as an exemple, what model will arnold s. sons follow once adults, with women? Their main model of a father figure is arnold. If they dont find substitutive father to replace his influence they ll reproduce what he s done.

[no parole]

If you are a devout christian, why the hell are you even on getbig? Not exactly a moral place. I don't think your jesus would approve.

[Natural Man]

If you are a devout christian, why the hell are you even on getbig? Not exactly a moral place. I don't think your jesus would approve.

thats what makes me laugh with tbomz and the coach and basically all people who wear a cross on their chest while sporting tattoos , guido clothes and dbol bloat.

[OTHstrong]

If you are a devout christian, why the hell are you even on getbig? Not exactly a moral place. I don't think your jesus would approve.

thats what makes me laugh with tbomz and the coach and basically all people who wear a cross on their chest while sporting tattoos , guido clothes and dbol bloat.

Great contribution to the arguments, awesome....actually I am going to change my mind about God now cause those points you guys made are breathtaking, awesome thanks

[Deicide]

Great contribution to the arguments, awesome....actually I am going to change my mind about God now cause those points you guys made are breathtaking, awesome thanks

What is your god's opinion of bodybuilding and steroid abuse?

[Shockwave]

What is your god's opinion of bodybuilding and steroid abuse?

Pretty sure god doesnt have a stand on roids, unless you lump it under vanity, or go for the laws of the nation angle.
But Im pretty sure no where does god state "Though shalt not use performance enhancing hormones, nor shalt thow endevour to increse thy muscle mass or attempt to better thy body, for if thow shalt, thow shalt be smitten by the lord for thy vanity."