Actually its more if you believe in god and he exists, you are forever imprisoned in the state of living and have been included into a social experiment to see how long you will live before trying to commit suicide from boredom. If you can't commit suicide your mind will subside into numb insanity leaving you to exist as a rough shell of your former self for all eternity. Whereas if you don't believe in god and he exists you get to simply die and exist as nothingness. (at least if I understand correctly) Which if thats the case your released from all stress and are left to be carefree with no emotion or thought. Which is basically ultimate peace.
No, you can go to Heaven even if you are not Christian or whatever, you just have to be good. There's a joke my priest once told (what I remember of it): There was a good Jewish man. One day, he died and went to Heaven. When he arrived, he saw a large brick wall on one side. However, he thought nothing of it and went about his business. After a few days though, he began to wonder what was going on over there; he could hear partying that was not coming from his side. So he went and asked God, "Who is on the other side of the wall?" God responded, "Oh, those are the Christians; they think they're the only ones up here!"
I like that joke Eons. Sheograth, your point makes no sense to me whatsoever. You're saying that you would rather cease to exist than live in eternal paradise? I don't know what you think, but I would definately prefer paradise. Also, if you don't believe in God, you don't just cease to exist, but you will go to Hell. Eternal damnation or Heaven? Have fun with whatever you choose... And once again, you can't have eternal peace if you cease to exist. Peace is a mental state, a feeling. How can you have a feeling if you don't exist? I hope I'm explaining things clear enough. I don't care if you guys hate me for my faith, I'm just going to try to explain it how I see it.
Eternal damnation....uh huh. So your saying that the person who admits he believes out of greed for the reward of heaven is more deserving than the man of no faith who does great deeds with the resolve that in the end he/she will receive nothing in return for what they have done. And to your first point I would, for even in a eternal paradise I would become bored with myself. I may strive for more right now, but I have been gifted with great academic ability. While this at first may seem like a great thing, it makes my life far to easy and boring. The same would happen in a eternal paradise. Think about this. You live FOREVER correct? Well how many things can you think of that you can switch back and fourth that invigorate the human soul? Now take these things and think, do you think these things will keep your attention for MILLIONS apon MILLIONS apon BILLIONS of years!? If you think they will than you must greatly enjoy these activites or you have a long list. But either way you will EVENTUALLY get bored. It doesn't have to be any time soon but as long as it happens at some point in time my point has been proven. Whereas on the other hand if you didn't exist you wouldn't need to deal with that inevitable boredom or the damnation of whatever "flaming pit" im "destined" to be thrown into.
Well, Halo 3 is fun to play, and maybe our xboxs won't RRoD in Heaven! Oh wait, I don't think xboxs go to Heaven... Seriously though: Sorry smitty, I'm going to go with Shegorath here. Though I do believe in the afterlife, the reasons you believe in it are not what will get you there. But if there is no afterlife, so what? How would we know?
I think you guys don't get what I'm saying... I'm not telling you to believe in God just so you can get to Heaven, I don't care if you believe it or not. And that's not why I believe it. There is one flaw I find in your logic. How can you get bored in Paradise? If you become bored, than it is no longer Paradise, now is it? So you've basically refuted your idea by yourself. If Heaven is eternal Paradise, then you cannot become bored. When you die and go to Heaven, you leave the area of space and time. You leave behind the physical world and entere the spiritual world. You will no longer be academically gifted, that is a physical gift. I'm trying to explain it as best I can, but I guess you're not understanding what I'm saying. There's public revelation and then there's private revelation. You decide your private revelation... Just a thought. By the way, just to let you guys no, I'm not a Jesus freak, haha. I'm just a normal kid and I actually don't go to Church that often... So don't get sort of freaked out be me lol.
Going to paradise would be awesome. Let me reiterate; AWESOME. However, after the first thousand...hundred thousand...million...billion...trillion years or so you start to realize that forever really means forever. And no matter how far you've come you realize you've still got an infinite amount of time ahead of you with no end in sight. Your only comfort is that you were right for a few years on earth. All lust, passion, sexuality, and sins (the fun ones) are a distant memory. Everything that made life worth living was your mortality and in the end you didn't even have that. Hell is not different. Except you get tortured, which could be fairly interesting. At least you have the ability to feel and not have a numbness creep over your body. I think you can find atheists proselytizing, but I want to be sure you realize that is the atheist's own doing not atheism's. You could only say "Nitrous is proselytizing" not "Atheists proselytize." Personally, I have been known to do it but I don't go out with that intention. For instance, in this debate I'm not out to convert, I'm just looking for a "fight" if you will. Like you pointed, atheism is a response to theism. My sister (13) is a Jesus superfan, as I like to call them. She'll bible bash me from time to time but I have as of yet to call her out on her points. Its her beliefs and she's not hurting anyone by holding them. People like Phil Donahue, however, do hurt people with their beliefs and when that happens I respond. Their beliefs are barking mad, if you'll excuse the canine expression and it's pig ignorant, even if you won't. . .
Well kind sir the academically gifted thing was pure example of how I have such feelings NOW. By that logic you can't feel happiness either if you leave the bounds of the physical world in a way that will inhibit your ability to feel bored. Also that is basically the equivalent of mind control in terms of free choice. By eliminating your emotion of boredom god has violated his reasoning that you have free choice as he will have destroyed your choice to be bored. On another note, if you are forced to beleive or you are sent to hell than isn't that basically just giving you only one rational choice? It would be like being charged with murder and told that you can skip your trial. But if you do theyll just give you the electric chair anyway and telling you that "you have free choice" when in reality there is only one option you can make to bring a positive conclision.
Smitty, what have these people here done to go to Hell? Not believe in God? You clearly did not read my joke, because it reinforced my point that any good man can get into Heaven. Everyone here is certainly not without their faults, but they all seem like good people nonetheless. Do you not agree? But recently, I've been thinking about the concept of reincarnation... what if we are just living our lives over and over? That would rule out an afterlife and any "boredom" or "lack of free will" that has become associated with it. Because I think it would really suck if when we die, we just die.
I think your off ... entirely.. Go back and reread a bible verse before you paraphrase it.. if your ever unsure... In Genesis... chapter 3 there is a line of Families to the Flood... TOTALLY different from the line of Jesus to King David... So I think your off because the 6000 years crap is a bit off as well.. Its paraphrased as well... You might as well Do a research to come up with a better year thought then that...Just because Its drastically different' then say Carbon dating records of of say... 100000 years doesn't mean its as per say...
Dude, I'm not a theologian. I just take what creationists spew out and repeat it for the sake of arguement. If you do believe Adam and Eve were the first people on the planet and were created a few days after the earth then the earth's age can not exceed 1 million years. That is not inline with current scientific thinking, which, unlike scripture, is based on evidence and fact. You wear your ignorance of science and carbon dating like a badge of honor. For the 18th time, carbon dating works up to 60,000 years. Get off your talking points and disprove a different dating method.
Disprove a dating system... That I clearly say is off... By SIMPLY applied reason, we haven't experienced ONE SINGLE Half life ..of the dam Carbon...atom... Done....
Carbon 14 (isotope) Half life is further then any recorded observation... I'll believe it once they experience a full half life... complete its self from the current date... Or o wait we can't any more..because of open air testing... meaning the theory can't prove itself... hence Why I don't thing its correct... Side note badges of mine usually have been placed for a really good reason... Though the idea of Carbon dating is excepted.. I treat it like any thing I hear... testing it to prove worth or not... are you going to follow suit.. You seem selective ... against picking on my Faith but not a simple theory... Second side note... Carbon 14 ...is still Carbon...and it does in fact Decay.. making your reply Totally a wasted post... Let me know when your going to argue...
C14 is an isotope, so that means it's got a different amount of neutrons. So it's not necessarily "just carbon", because isotopes can be radioactive depending on the element. That is why it is numbered; it indicates a different amount of neutrons. Carbon dating is not some theory, it is a tested method of dating old artifacts. IT'S SCIENCE.
We won't live long enough to see Neptune make one full revolution around the sun, it must not actually go around the sun...silly me, I forgot myself. You haven't tested it. You may have observed it, made semi-rational claims against it, and then used someone else's arguement as filler. I, tremendously doubt that if your claims were in fact a problem for carbon dating, scientists would ignore it. Why would you use faulty equipment if it was your job to date things. That's me taking a, my gosh, a leap of faith. Here is a defense of carbon dating: When plants fix atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) into organic material during photosynthesis they incorporate a quantity of 14C that approximately matches the level of this isotope in the atmosphere (a small difference occurs because of isotope fractionation, but this is corrected after laboratory analysis). After plants die or they are consumed by other organisms (for example, by humans or other animals) the 14C fraction of this organic material declines at a fixed exponential rate due to the radioactive decay of 14C. Comparing the remaining 14C fraction of a sample to that expected from atmospheric 14C allows the age of the sample to be estimated. Open air means nothing. The theory proves itself not by sitting there with a stop watch waiting for it to finish but through dating materials of known age. Dating the dead sea scrolls, tree rings, etc. You take a foolish approach to judging carbon dating. Whether you think its correct or not does not change its validity. You have to convince me and others that it is a waste of time before presuming we'll bow down at your feet.
NO its a tool of measuring... LIke a ruler... or a tape measure...Simply set a distance and then multiply... Second... Just because it has 14 Neutrons Does not make it any different from any other Carbon..the traits of Carbon are treated the same in EVERY Carbon...because of its Element factor..Making it carbon...because the Neutrons does not' control the simple fact of what an element is.. its the number of Protons in the element and its atomic weight....(These are found by the elements Mole Count if you do not understand talk to a Science teacher that knows much about Biology. Now Can we Agree Carbon is carbon and get to a point of proving your beloved Carbon dating ..or is this badge just going to set on my chest uncontested again? Seems like people post faster when they copy other arguments... Simply 1 half life would make sense to me...Just one... not half of a half life taking place but... a full one... I mean reassuring planets with the naked eye caused people to notice planets orbits for quite a while...Long enough for a group of people observing the case and finial agreeing to the terms...Like for example the group of Astrology has seen as a collective group proved the theory ..with its completion... as for your dead sea scrolls... again... what if say the half life measured to a shorter half life? I mean 15000 years would support a better half life for carbon 14 then 60000 years... but thats just me sprouting a though... and MY POINT IS NO one has observed...carbon dating long enough for us to really use it as a dating tool ... WITH that your proving my point... as apose to Neptune..which has been here long enough that we know its orbits... because we recorded our finds and have found over time... the old dates placement of the star..and the guessed line of path match up... and then adding the checks of balance with todays result... Since we have a ploted line of carbon dating ... we jump to using it... You as well... I view those finding false... they aren't proving much because of fractions of decimials...but besides that... THIs is my own arguement... I dont' steal from another.. I work with another from the old to prove the today...
Well it is still carbon, the only way to change that is to change the number of protons, but yeah carbon dating works. Eons is right.
Last I checked you were the one who backed out. Well, no ****...C12 and C14 are both carbon atoms. Neutrons do not control what an atom is classified as, protons do as stated. No one is saying that C14 isn't carbon, I'm just saying it is radioactive and breaks down at a steady rate. Make a point next time.
Yes, yes, obviously it's still carbon. What I meant though is that the change in neutrons constitutes a change in properties, no matter how small. Carbon in its natural form is not radioactive; C14 is. I am thoroughly confused as to what your qualms are over carbon dating.