For one thing, where did I ever said I truely believed in the Force? Please, I'm an Atheist, the Force is the product of george lucas' imagination, I never said I believed in it...That's just foolish.
I´m a christian, and use another explanation of what you believe in. Your image of christianity is a bit "wrong" and influenced by prejudices and maybe things that you heard about. I bet you never lived like a real christian or felt the way we do. I definetely not running around ( or not) and pray humbly to my downpushing god and all that untrue crap which is meant by so many to be a real accrued ( If you talk about such things you mean the church...even the chruch was created by humans, not by god! )
Excuse me? My opinion on organized religion is my own, and you can't call my opinion wrong, it is how I believe, It's not just Christianity, and is not influenced by prejudiced, I don't have a discriminate bone in my body, and I take serious offense to you judging me as such without any knowledge of my true person. I have infact lived as a real christian, I was raised Catholic, again a judgment you made of me without knowing me. My opinion on the Christian faith is not "wrong" or logical fallacy, I've done a lot of research into such things, and I'm very facinated with religion, that is why I like star wars and Star gate so much, because religious belief is actually a key part of the story. I never said you run around praying, my friends are devout Christians and they certianly don't be for real here, don't put words into my mouth...I never said you God was surpressive, he does however give you rules, which you must follow to be allowed into his "Kingdom".
The Church was the first actual law, if you are a christian you should know this, the Catholic Church was one of the first modernly established governments, what I mean by modernly is the beginning of the years "A.D.". They Catholic church enforced laws as we do now, except punishment was excommunication or public execution. The Church was established by humans, which is why I disgree with Organized Religion, because as it was established by humans, it is not "god's true word" and no body who runs a church knows god's true word, no matter how "connected" they are to their faith, The bible tells that no one can hears gods word for his speech was not ment for mortal ears, and thus he appointed a represenative, The Voice of God, whos name I can't remember at the moment...
Christianity is represented by it's churchs, you should know that, and as such, was law.
I don't question nor would ever do anything to insult your belief in god, my mention of christianity was not derogitive at all, you were taught by your parent's or preist/preacher that murder is evil, it is a sin. The Ten Commandments are laws, if you do not follow them you are sentenced to **** or pergitory, If you kill someone here, you are sentenced to life in prison or capital punishment, so tell me, how is there a difference? There isn't they are laws, however the punishment isn't immediate, as it is most of the time in modern day.
This "conscience" has been explained by many psychologists, there are many explinations for it's existance, one of the more possible is that it is remorse we feel for violating laws and rules that have been "hard coded" into our minds. However a "conscience" is easily broken, many people in history felt no remorse for their wrong doings, such as mass murders, bundy I'm sure didn't have a conscience, simple as that, he decided to break the rules, and felt no problems with doing so.
I was explaining that star wars has many tie-ins to philosophy, such as the Matrix does, I never down played you religion, and I don't appreciate you putting words in my mouth saying I do. You would do well to take a philosophy course when you get to college, or whatever school system they have over there, The world is all as you perceive it, The Matrix affected a lot of people adversely because of this, they started to think "you know...this is entirely possible, someone can simulate taste, we have flavour enhancers, so why would it be impossible that everything else could be replicated?" (I do not believe that I'm hooked up to a computer mind you, just so you don't get all defensive.)
Good and evil are how you percieve them, I don't call someone evil in the sense of "going to ****" obviously. Albert Einstein explained Evil in a very simple and effective way.
"What is cold? Cold is the absence of radient heat in an area, it is not physical, it is psychological, you cannot describe something that does not exist, however the absence of heat does affect our bodies heavily.
What is darkness? Darkness is the term we use to describe the absence of light, light is energy, and we cannot describe the absence of something because it does not exist, the absence of light does adversely affect our bodies, but is not physical because as there is no "division or subtraction" you can't calculate the absence of something.
What is Evil? Evils is the word we use to describe the absence of god, and while one might not be close to god, he is still there, and the absence of him would be what we describe as Evil."
Now as he was a christian he defends his religion to perfection, I like his discription of the absence of god, and as you believe there is a god, and that he is with me, if I realize his presence or no, there is no evil, because god is always here, evil lies only in what you call ****, because that is a domain where god is never present.
Cold and darkness don't exist because the absence of something simply can't exist. Do you understand now?
The way you jumped to a defensive stance to your religion was unexpected, and you took what I said completely out of context, putting words in my mouth. If you have a problem with me being gay, we can discuss this like the adults we are, however if your post was solely related to my comments on christianity, then you have your answer. Yes, i've read the bible, several versions of it infact, the Hindu Vedas, the Old and New Testiments, and the Muslim bible the Qu'ran, I also study ancient religions such as Egyptian polytheism and Wicca. While I do not practice these, I find them facinating and I do know quite a bit about them. The fact that they all have very similar commandments and rules is interesting, and that tells me, in my opinion, that no one has got it right yet, that we stemmed from something long gone, and have yet to rediscover it.
The fact is, laws are decided by the people in power, in France for instance it is Illegal to openly show your religion, not because the French hate religion, far from it, they realize that this is a very private matter, and always causes conflict. My opinion on organized religion can be summed up as such "Religion causes conflict, conflict while human nature, is not helpful, Wars have been started, such as the "Holy War" between Iraq and the U.S. (And I use "holy war" loosely, as it is not the only motivation for the attacks on our country, but I wont get into that.)The Catholics excommunicated the Lutherans when they seperated from the church, and conflict started, many lutherans were killed in that movement. Organized Religion gives people hope to cling to, and it's needed in such dark times, I can admit that there are times I wish that I could believe like you do, it would make life so much easier for me to cope with. It causes problems however, because beliefs are feverish, extream, "I am the one god and you worship only me" "Allah is the one true god" "Thou shalt not worship any other god than I". This causes problems, and they wont help us in the long run, either one religion is going to lord over the rest, or the wars will continue until our society is no longer civilized." I don't insult your religion, I just don't believe that organized religion brings anything to this world.
Let me ask you somthing Jan, one of my teachers showed me this a long time ago when I was in grade school, and I found it very insightful.
"There is no God"
"I am the one God, you will not worship any other God than I" (In reference to the Christian God)
"Allah is the one true god"
All of these statements are non-fiction, yet completely contradictory, the generalized defintion of "Non-Fiction" is Truth, however if these statements contradict each other, how can they all be True? So then you ask yourself, What is truth? Truth, like history, is memory, it is easily explained by one person remembering an event diffrently from another, because each person has their own view of the world, for all you know, Your green could be my red...It's all how you percieve it. Very few things in the world are actually what we define as "True". Philosophy is called the study of objective thought because to understand it correctly you must put aside faith, and look at this logically, think outside the normal frame of reference. You would automatically say "Those statements aren't true, the christian god is the one true god" if you were christian because christians believe that their religion is the right one. So before you examine "Good and Evil", you must examine, Truth and Non-Truth. Something for you to think about...
