“If God does not exist, then all things are permitted.”

[Campbell]

I'm sure I could do a quick Google search on it and give you some answers (you deserve them these are good questions) - but, I'm not feeling my best today and the answers are not coming me. So, my apologies.

Oh, so you preach from your internet pulpit, not really knowing what you are talking about. Gotcha.

I know some things but not everything.

What do you know though, really? You don't KNOW anything. You just think you do because of what you read in a book written by ignorant and superstitious men thousands of years ago.

I know because it is real to me. What God has done in my life.

Many people who do worship God do NOT have good lives. I suppose God is "testing" their faith while he tortures them here on earth? That is a GOD that I don't want ANY part of. If there is a God, I certainly do not believe in your version of the hateful, vengeful and selfish God as portrayed in your silly books.

You suppose? When Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi approached Franklin Roosevelt about the first atomic bomb......they did a little more than suppose. At least they must have because Roosevelt and General Leslie Groves built a couple.

Reality is good......superstition sucks!

 

[Campbell]

I know some things but not everything.

What do you know though, really? You don't KNOW anything. You just think you do because of what you read in a book written by ignorant and superstitious men thousands of years ago.

I know because it is real to me. What God has done in my life.

Many people who do worship God do NOT have good lives. I suppose God is "testing" their faith while he tortures them here on earth? That is a GOD that I don't want ANY part of. If there is a God, I certainly do not believe in your version of the hateful, vengeful and selfish God as portrayed in your silly books.

This life on Earth is like a millisecond seconds of your eternal life.
If you think the 30+ years on this Earth is all you have, I understand.
But for a Christian, sacrificing "enjoyment and pleasure" on Earth is your responsibility as a Christian, and you will find peace and comfort in doing it for God your Eternal Father.

You realize that when we die, we're all going to the same place regardless of what books we read, don't you?

I do.....ashes to ashes and dust to dust!!

 

[BluePhantom]

37Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does.

Again He is confirming that He has a Father and He(Jesus) is not him...

Jesus, I can't believe you are struggling so hard to get this. The Gospel of John is predicated upon the idea that Jesus IS God. This is one reason why John is the favorite among Christian followers. Unlike the Synoptic Gospels, where Jesus hides His identity and performs miracles in private (for the most part) so as not to gain too much attention to who He is, in John Jesus goes out of His way to prove that He is God. He waits to perform miracles until crowds gather so they can bear witness. Hell he waited three days to raise Lazarus because He wanted a bigger crowd to witness the miracle and prove His identity.

As Bonzi pointed out above, the book starts out with the very first verses establishing Jesus as God. "...the Word WAS God...The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." Right from the start it establishes that the Son of God IS the Word in the flesh and the Word IS God.

Jesus makes seven "I AM" statements in John. This is critical to understand because that is how God identified Himself to Moses..."I am who I am" (YHWH). It's not an accident that Jesus identifies Himself using the words "I AM" nor is it an accident that He does it seven times, seven being a divine number. The author of John goes to great effort to make it clear that Jesus was God in the flesh.

I am not sure why you are trying to twist certain passages out of the context of the chapters and the Gospel of John as a whole. It is as clear to anyone (theist or non-theist) what John is establishing in the manner in which Jesus is portrayed. I don't see what you have to gain by this except to demonstrate your willingness to take things out of context and twist them around to mean something else.

Now here's what I will give you. It is certainly possible that Jesus never made any such claim to divinity and that the words attributed to Him in John, as well as the other gospels where He makes similar claims to be the Son of God and the Son of Man, are not historical but are merely attempts by the authors of the gospels to depict Jesus after the fact as being something that he never actually claimed to be. That is absolutely possible. Proving that is something else. What is undeniable is that, at least according to John, He made the claim to be God in the flesh and did so in no uncertain terms.

 

[BluePhantom]

Threw an empty soda can out my car window. Littering, who gives a fuck, I'm going to hell anyhow because I don't believe in God so what does it matter what additional bad things I do?

I'll save you a seat. I'm 81 years old so I'll probably arrive there before you.

Dr. Einstein nailed it:

"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own--a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human fraility. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism."

~posted in his obituary in the NY Times~

You tried this on another thread and it didn't work out too well for you.

"In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views."

~ Albert Einstein
(Clark, Ronald (1971), Einstein: The Life and Times. New York: World Publishing Company, p. 425)

In other words, Albert is telling you to shut up and quit using him to support your views.

 

[BluePhantom]

... agree or disagree? .... and why?

When I was sixteen I remember thinking, if there is no God it does not matter what I do. So I shot some birds with an air rifle. Then one of them was wounded but not killed and it hid from me under a bush. I saw it looking at me and I realized it did matter. I had cruelly and pointlessly injured a harmless little bird and I felt bad.
It taught me that even if there is no God and no punishment for anything we do we should still have compassion.

Trying to stick to the subject, not everyone has compassion. There are many many people that are mentally ill, selfish to the point of not caring about others etc. Ultimately, we need God because we are incomplete without him, but, for people that don't "naturally" have compassion and love for others, they need God to change them from the inside out.

Not everyone is able to 'self police' - but like I said, we need God not to keep us in line, but to give us REAL life.

Many fervently religious people lack compassion. Especially for those who do not believe as they do

Unfortunately, that is true.
Jesus commanded that we speak the truth in love and grace (Ephesians 4:15)
Many get worked up listening to Preachers (men) not teaching this, but, rather trying to incite Christian's to stand up and fight (which we should, but, in truth and grace....) Which many don't know how to do.
The Christian leadership fails at properly equipping believers to share the Gospel in this way.

It is not just Christians but all religions

Majority of religions have little room in their doctrine for differences in opinion

That is just people in general and religion has nothing to do with it. Now I would agree that if one embraces Christianity they should follow the tenants of that faith and compassion is a big one. The truth is theists on the whole are very compassionate. They generally donate more to charity, they volunteer more, they do a lot of great things. It's the assholes that fuck it all up. While the assholes are far fewer in number they distract from the good that people of faith do for their communities and the world in general.

 

[BluePhantom]

Unfortunately, that is true.
Jesus commanded that we speak the truth in love and grace (Ephesians 4:15)
Many get worked up listening to Preachers (men) not teaching this, but, rather trying to incite Christian's to stand up and fight (which we should, but, in truth and grace....) Which many don't know how to do.
The Christian leadership fails at properly equipping believers to share the Gospel in this way.

It is not just Christians but all religions

Majority of religions have little room in their doctrine for differences in opinion

If you have a belief, and, the text you use (e.g. the Bible) sets out Godly standards and principles, and, if you turn you life over to God and vow to live a more Christ-like life (using my belief system as an example) there is not room for difference of opinion because God's word is the final word. Above and beyond any man-made, secular rule, law or belief.

ISIS feels the same way

True, but Christians are not asked to kill anyone. Remember, Grace and Truth.....
.... that does not include chopping people's heads off .... also, relationship with God is a personal calling, not something you demand of someone....

But in the OT they are . . . That's another thing. A lot of Christians want to completely ignore the OT. They say they only follow the NT. Well, are you saying that God was mistaken in the OT? What's up with that?

That is an effect of Paul's teachings. This is a bit simplistic and there are some nuances in Paul's philosophy that make it rather complicated, but the shorthand is that according to Paul, once one accepts Grace they are embracing the New Covenant with God and the Old Covenant is no longer applicable. It's important to realize that Paul didn't think he was helping to create a new religion. Paul, as well as the other apostles, thought they were taking Judaism into the next (and final) phase. That new phase abolished the old Law and created a new Law.

Since Paul is the primary influential force behind modern Christianity, it is not surprising that Christians feel the New Testament is the Law and the Old Testament (or Torah to be more specific) is no longer Law. Although it may still be good advice, we are not bound to it anymore....at least according to Paul

 

[BluePhantom]

According to the OT, we are all supposed to be sacrificing lambs. Bonzi, did you make your weekly lamb sacrifice yet?

Again this is the point. Jesus became the sacrifice for all mankind, thus it is no longer necessary to make sacrifices. Prior to Jesus, in order to "get to God" so to speak, one had to take a sacrificial animal to the Temple. The priests would sacrifice it and then through the priests your prayers would be heard by God. But according to Paul, Jesus took the place of those sacrificial animals on behalf of mankind. Thus, we no longer have to go through the priests or the Temple to "get to God". We can now go straight to the Big Guy Himself.

This is a really good example of what I was saying in my previous post. Jesus made the old Law inapplicable and created a new Law...at least according to Paul. The Jews disagree with him to this day.

 

[BluePhantom]

Oh wait . . . they can just say "sorry" and all will be well!

No, it's not just saying sorry.
It's turning from your sinful ways and living for God.

No it is not. People repent on their death beds. They did NOT live their lives in a Godly manner.

there are those that do repent at death, yes. if it's genuine, it's honored by God. Only God knows the heart.

Yes, so the atheist says, "I'm sorry that I didn't worship you God, but I lived a good life. I donated to many charities, I helped those less fortunate than me, I was faithful to my spouse." God says, "too fucking bad, it's all about me." Meanwhile, the guy who murdered six kids who repents on his death bed gets a ticket to Heaven. Fuck that. Your religion is disgusting, IMO.

It really depends on who you ask, Chris. Personally, I do not believe in hell or Satan for a lot of reasons that I have explained in detail on other threads and don't wish to write out again. Let's just say that through my scholarly research (differentiating that from my faith based exploration of God) on the history of Judeo-Christianity I have concluded that hell and Satan are man made concepts designed to a) explain suffering, and b) terrify people into behaving the way the Church wanted them to behave.

But that does not mean I am not a Christian. Anyone who believes that Jesus was the Messiah is, by definition, a Christian. You could make an argument for a narrower interpretation based upon the Nicean Creed, but that's the one I go with.

Now there will be a lot of other Christians who say I am not a Christian because I don't in hell. Jeremiah recently called me evil and accused me of practicing witchcraft because of my disbelief in hell. Koshergrl has made some pretty harsh charges against me for such views, so there will always be those who have a really rigid and harsh interpretation of scripture (and I would argue that such interpretations are largely ignorant of the historical, cultural, and linguistic influences that were the context for what the authors of the Bible were actually saying). There is nothing that can be done about that because you can't talk reason to someone who is intent on being unreasonable. All you can do is shrug your shoulders and move on.

 

[Campbell]

Threw an empty soda can out my car window. Littering, who gives a fuck, I'm going to hell anyhow because I don't believe in God so what does it matter what additional bad things I do?

I'll save you a seat. I'm 81 years old so I'll probably arrive there before you.

Dr. Einstein nailed it:

"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own--a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human fraility. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism."

~posted in his obituary in the NY Times~

You tried this on another thread and it didn't work out too well for you.

"In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views."

~ Albert Einstein
(Clark, Ronald (1971), Einstein: The Life and Times. New York: World Publishing Company, p. 425)

In other words, Albert is telling you to shut up and quit using him to support your views.

I can understand a thumper not necessarily wanting to see the god view of one of the most talented geniuses in the history of the world.

If he had not wanted folks to know how he felt why would this have been included in his obituary?

Dr. Albert Einstein Dies in Sleep at 76; World Mourns Loss of Great Scientist
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Albert Einstein was born at Ulm, Wuerttemberg, Germany, on March 14, 1879. His boyhood was spent in Munich, where his father, who owned electro-technical works, had settled. The family migrated to Italy in 1894, and Albert was sent to a cantonal school at Aarau in Switzerland. He attended lectures while supporting himself by teaching mathematics and physics at the Polytechnic School at Zurich until 1900. Finally, after a year as tutor at Schaffthausen, he was appointed examiner of patents at the Patent Office at Bern where, having become a Swiss citizen, he remained until 1909.

It was in this period that he obtained his Ph.D. degree at the University of Zurich and published his first papers on physical subjects.

These were so highly esteemed that in 1909 he was appointed Extraordinary Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Zurich. In 1911 he accepted the Chair of Physics at Prague, only to be induced to return to his own Polytechnic School at Zurich as full professor the next year. In 1913 a special position was created for him in Berlin as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute. He was elected a member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences and received a stipend sufficient to enable him to devote all his time to research without any restrictions or routine duties.

<snip> Mod Edit to comply with copyright rules (don't post entire articles but a small to medium section, also please link to source - link has been added).

"I assert," he wrote for The New York Times on Nov. 9, 1930, "that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and the noblest driving force behind scientific research. No one who does not appreciate the terrific exertions and, above all, the devotion without which pioneer creation in scientific thought cannot come into being can judge the strength of the feeling out of which alone such work turned away as it is from immediate, practical life, can grow."

"The most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience," he wrote "is the mystical. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. This insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, also has given rise to religion. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms--this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong in the ranks of devoutly religious men.

"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own--a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human fraility. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism. It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we can dimly perceive, and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in nature.

"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God."

"The most incomprehensible thing about the world," he said on another occasion, "is that it is comprehensible."

 

[BluePhantom]

everything you say here is based on what you have read in your silly book written by ignorant uneducated people who did not understand the world around them,

Whoa, whoa, whoa....hold on a sec. The authors of the Bible were FAR from ignorant and uneducated. Paul, just as an example, was HIGHLY educated and his arguments are absolutely ingenious in their structure, depth, and content. He wrote in excellent Greek using proper rhetoric for the manner of writing he was engaged in. Now we may or may not disagree with his philosophy or his conclusions, but make no mistake. These guys were not idiots by any means.

They were angry. Paul comes across in his letters as a very angry, egotistical, sarcastic prick. The prophets of the Old Testament were raging. People today read scripture and we have a tendency to read them with a reverent tone of voice because the language sounds old. In reality these guys were pissed as parakeets. Imagine a modern demonstration on the streets with a bunch of people marching and a guy with a bullhorn screaming about injustice and raising hell. Ok THAT is what Paul and the prophets were. They were radicals and they created a shit storm with their writings, but their arguments were very complex, extraordinarily deep in most cases, and they frequently used Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle as a basis for their arguments. The author of Hebrews used Plato's Allegory of the Cave, as a singular example, in a fantastically brilliant fashion in order to make, what I at least believe to be, a very misunderstood point.

You can correctly accuse the authors of the Bible of being a lot of things....stupid and uneducated aint among them.

 

[BluePhantom]

Threw an empty soda can out my car window. Littering, who gives a fuck, I'm going to hell anyhow because I don't believe in God so what does it matter what additional bad things I do?

I'll save you a seat. I'm 81 years old so I'll probably arrive there before you.

Dr. Einstein nailed it:

"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own--a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human fraility. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism."

~posted in his obituary in the NY Times~

You tried this on another thread and it didn't work out too well for you.

"In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views."

~ Albert Einstein
(Clark, Ronald (1971), Einstein: The Life and Times. New York: World Publishing Company, p. 425)

In other words, Albert is telling you to shut up and quit using him to support your views.

I can understand a thumper not necessarily wanting to see the god view of one of the most talented geniuses in the history of the world.

If he had not wanted folks to know how he felt why would this have been included in his obituary?

Dr. Albert Einstein Dies in Sleep at 76; World Mourns Loss of Great Scientist
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
Albert Einstein was born at Ulm, Wuerttemberg, Germany, on March 14, 1879. His boyhood was spent in Munich, where his father, who owned electro-technical works, had settled. The family migrated to Italy in 1894, and Albert was sent to a cantonal school at Aarau in Switzerland. He attended lectures while supporting himself by teaching mathematics and physics at the Polytechnic School at Zurich until 1900. Finally, after a year as tutor at Schaffthausen, he was appointed examiner of patents at the Patent Office at Bern where, having become a Swiss citizen, he remained until 1909.

It was in this period that he obtained his Ph.D. degree at the University of Zurich and published his first papers on physical subjects.

These were so highly esteemed that in 1909 he was appointed Extraordinary Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Zurich. In 1911 he accepted the Chair of Physics at Prague, only to be induced to return to his own Polytechnic School at Zurich as full professor the next year. In 1913 a special position was created for him in Berlin as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute. He was elected a member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences and received a stipend sufficient to enable him to devote all his time to research without any restrictions or routine duties.

Elected to Royal Society

He was elected a foreign member of the Royal Society in 1921, having also been made previously a member of the Amsterdam and Copenhagen Academies, while the Universities of Geneva, Manchester, Rostock and Princeton conferred honorary degrees on him. In 1925 he received the Copley Medal of the Royal Society and in 1926 the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in recognition of his theory of relativity. He received a Nobel Price in 1921.

Honors continued to be conferred on him. He was made a member of the Institute de France, one of the few foreigners ever to achieve such a distinction. Other great universities throughout the world, including Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, Madrid, Buenos Aires, Zurich, Yeshiva, Harvard, London and Brussels, awarded honorary doctorates to him.

One of the highest American scientific honors, the Franklin Institute Medal, came to him in 1935, when he startled the scientific world by failing to deliver more than a mere "thank-you" in lieu of the scientific address customary on such occasions. He made up for it later by contributing an important paper to the Journal of the Franklin Institute dealing with ideas, he explained, that were not quite ripe at the time he received the medal.

Dr. Einstein married Mileva Marec, a fellow-student in Switzerland, in 1901. They had two sons, Albert Einstein Jr., an electrical engineer who also came to this country, and Eduard. The marriage ended in divorce. He married again, in 1917, this time his cousin, Elsa Einstein, a widow with two daughters. She died in Princeton in 1936.

To Institute at Princeton in '32

When the Institute for Advanced Study was organized in 1932 Dr. Einstein was offered and accepted, the place of Professor of Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, and served, also, as the Head of the Mathematics Department. The institute was situated at Princeton, N.J., and Dr. Einstein made plans to live there about half of each year.

These plans were changed suddenly. Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany and essential human liberty, even for Jews with world reputations like Dr. Einstein, became impossible in Germany. He announced that he would not return to Berlin, sailed for Europe and went to Belgium.

Immediately many nations invited him to make his home in their lands. In the late spring of 1933 Dr. Einstein learned, in Belgium, that his two step-daughters had been forced to flee Germany.

Not long after that he was notified through the press that he had been ousted from the supervising board of the German Bureau of Standards. His home at Caputh was sacked by Hitler Brown Shirts on the allegation that the world-renowned physicist and pacifist had a vast store of arms hidden there.

The Prussian Academy of Science expelled him and also attacked him for having made statements regarding Hitler atrocities. His reply was this:

"I do not want to remain in a state where individuals are not conceded equal rights before the law for freedom of speech and doctrine."

In September of 1933 he fled from Belgium and went into seclusion on the coast of England, fearful that the Nazis had plans upon his life. Then he journeyed to Princeton and made his home there. He bought a home in Princeton and settled down to pass his remaining years there. In 1940 he became a citizen of the United States.

Einstein Noted as an Iconoclast In Research, Politics and Religion His Early Spare-Time Reflections in Bern Led to Strong Belief in Social Equality and Hope for a World Government
In 1904, Albert Einstein, then an obscure young man of 25, could be seen daily in the late afternoon wheeling a baby carriage on the streets of Bern, Switzerland, halting now and then, unmindful of the traffic around him, to scribble down some mathematical symbols in a notebook that shared the carriage with his infant son, also named Albert.

Out of those symbols came the most explosive ideas in the age-old strivings of man to fathom the mystery of his universe. Out of them, incidentally, came the atomic bomb, which, viewed from the long-range perspective of mankind's intellectual and spiritual history may turn out, Einstein fervently hoped, to have been just a minor by-product.

With those symbols Dr. Einstein was building his theory of relativity. In that baby carriage with his infant son was Dr. Einstein's universe-in-the-making, a vast, finite-infinite four-dimensional universe, in which the conventional universe--existing in absolute three-dimensional space and in absolute three-dimensional time of past, present and future--vanished into a mere subjective shadow.

Dr. Einstein was then building his universe in his spare time, on the completion of his day's routine work as a humble, $600-a-year examiner in the Government Patent Office in Bern.

Published Four Papers

A few months later, in 1905, the entries in the notebook were published in four epoch-making scientific papers. In the first he described a method for determining molecular dimensions. In the second he explained the photo-electric effect, the basis of electronics, for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1921. In the third, he presented a molecular kinetic theory of heat. The fourth and last paper that year, entitled "Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies," a short article of thirty-one pages, was the first presentation of what became known as the Special Relativity Theory.

Three of the papers were published, one at a time, in Volume 17 of the German scientific journal, Annalen der Physik, leading journal of physics in the world at the time. The fourth was printed in Volume 18. Neither Dr. Einstein, nor the world he lived in, nor man's concept of his material universe, were ever the same again.

Many other scientific papers, of startling originality and intellectual boldness, were published by Dr. Einstein in the succeeding years. The scientific fraternity in the world of physics, particularly the leaders of the group, recognized from the beginning that a new star of the first magnitude had appeared on their firmament. But with the passing of time his fame spread to other circles, and by 1920 the name of Einstein had become synonymous with relativity, a theory universally regarded as so profound that only twelve men in the entire world were believed able to fathom its depths.

Legend Grew With Years

Paradoxically, as the years passed, the figure of Einstein the man became more and more remote, while that of Einstein the legend came ever nearer to the masses of mankind. They grew to know him not as a universe-maker whose theories they could not hope to understand but as a world citizen, one of the outstanding spiritual leaders of his generation, a symbol of the human spirit and its highest aspirations.

"The world around Einstein has changed very much since he published his first discoveries * * * but his attitude to the world around him has not changed," wrote Dr. Phillipp Frank, Dr. Einstein's biographer, in 1947. "He has remained an individualist who prefers to be unencumbered by social relations, and at the same time a fighter for social equality and human fraternity.

"Many famous scholars live in the distinguished university town," (Princeton) Dr. Frank continues, "but no inhabitant will simply number Einstein as one among many other famous people. For the people of Princeton in particular and for the world at large he is not just a great scholar, but rather one of the legendary figures of the twentieth century. Einstein's acts and words are not simply noted and judged as facts; instead each has its symbolic significance * * *"

"Saintly," "noble" and "lovable" were the words used to describe him by those who knew him even casually. He radiated humor, warmth and kindliness. He loved jokes and laughed easily.

Princeton residents would see him walk in their midst, a familiar figure, yet a stranger, a close neighbor, yet at the same time a visitor from another world. And as he grew older his otherworldiness became more pronounced, yet his human warmth did not diminish.

Outward appearance meant nothing to him. Princetonians, old and young, soon got used to the long-haired figure in pullover sweater and unpressed slacks wandering in their midst, a knitted stocking cap covering his head in winter.

"My passionate interest in social justice and social responsibility," he wrote, "has always stood in curious contrast to a marked lack of desire for direct association with men and women. I am a horse for single harness, not cut out for tandem or team work. I have never belonged wholeheartedly to country or state, to my circle of friends, or even to my own family. These ties have always been accompanied by a vague aloofness, and the wish to withdraw into myself increases with the years.

"Such isolation is sometimes bitter, but I do not regret being cut off from the understanding and sympathy of other men. I lose something by it, to be sure, but I am compensated for it in being rendered independent of the customs, opinions and prejudices of others, and am not tempted to rest my peace of mind upon such shiftless foundations."

Center of Controversies

It was this independence that made Dr. Einstein on occasions the center of controversy, as the result of his championship of some highly unpopular causes. He declared himself a stanch pacifist in Germany during World War I and brought down upon his head a storm of violent criticism from all sides. When outstanding representatives of German art and science signed, following the German invasion of Belgium in violation of treaty, the "Manifesto of Ninety-two German Intellectuals," asserting that "German culture and German militarism are identical," Dr. Einstein refused to sign and again faced ostracism and the wrath of the multitudes.

But he never wavered when his conscience dictated that he take a course of action, no matter how unpopular. One of these occasions came on Jan. 12, 1953, when he wrote to President Harry S. Truman:

"My conscience compels me to urge you to commute the death sentence of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg," the two convicted atomic spies who were executed five months later. In June, 1953, he wrote a letter to a school teacher in which he characterized certain tactics of a Congressional investigating committee as "a kind of inquisition" that "violates the spirit of the Constitution," and advised the "minority of intellectuals" to refuse to testify on the ground that "it is shameful for a blameless citizen to submit to such an inquisition." Faced with this evil, he said, he could "see only the revolutionary way of non-cooperation in the sense of Gandhi's."

Later that year Dr. Einstein advised a witness not to answer any questions by Senator Joseph R. McCarthy, Republican of Wisconsin, relating to personal beliefs, politics, associations with other people, reading, thinking and writing, as a violation of the First Amendment, which provides constitutional guarantees of free speech and associations. The witness, in refusing to cooperate with the subcommittee then headed by Senator McCarthy, said he was doing so on the advice of Dr. Einstein, who confirmed the witness's statement.

"He was a severe critic of modern methods of education. "It is nothing short of a miracle," he said, "that modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry. For this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom."

His political ideal, he emphasized frequently, was democracy. The distinctions separating the social classes, he wrote, "are false. In the last analysis they rest on force. I am convinced that degeneracy follows every autocratic system of violence, for violence inevitably attracts moral inferiors * * *. For this reason I have always been passionately opposed to such regimes as exist in Russia and Italy today."

This was written in 1931, two years before Hitler came to power.

Dr. Einstein believed that a socialist planned economy was the only way to eliminate the inequalities of capitalism. However, he fully recognized that "planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual."

His love for the oppressed also led him to become a strong supporter of Zionism.

In November, 1952, following the death of Chaim Weizmann, Dr. Einstein was asked if he would accept the Presidency of Israel. He replied that he was deeply touched by the offer but that he was not suited for the position.

He never undertook functions he could not fulfill to his satisfaction, he said, and he felt he was not qualified in the area of human relationships.

Chairman of Atomic Unit

On Aug. 6, 1945, when the world was electrified with the news that an atomic bomb had exploded over Japan, the significance of relativity was intuitively grasped by the millions. From then on the destiny of mankind hung on a thin mathematical thread.

Dr. Einstein devoted much of his time and energy in an attempt to arouse the world's consciousness to its dangers. He became the chairman of the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, organized to make the American people aware of the potential horrors of atomic warfare and the necessity for the international control of atomic energy. He believed that real peace could be achieved only by total disarmament and the establishment of a "restricted world government," a "supranational judicial and executive body empowered to decide questions of immediate concern to the security of the nations."

"The hydrogen bomb," he said in 1950, "appears on the public horizon as a probably attainable goal. * * * If successful, radioactive poisoning of the atmosphere, and hence annihilation of any life on earth, has been brought within the range of technical possibilities."

He found recreation from his labors in playing the grand piano that stood in the solitary den in the garret of his residence. Much of his leisure time, too, was spent in playing the violin. He was especially fond of playing trios and quartets with musical friends.

"In my life," he said once, explaining his great love for music, "the artistically visionary plays no mean role. After all, the work of a research scientist germinates upon the soil of imagination, of vision. Just as an artist arrives at his conceptions partly by intuition, so a scientist must also have a certain amount of intuition."

While he did not believe in a formal, dogmatic religion, Dr. Einstein, like all true mystics, was of a deeply religious nature. He referred to it as the cosmic religion, which he defined as a seeking on the part of the individual who feels it "to experience the totality of existence as a unity full of significance."

"I assert," he wrote for The New York Times on Nov. 9, 1930, "that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and the noblest driving force behind scientific research. No one who does not appreciate the terrific exertions and, above all, the devotion without which pioneer creation in scientific thought cannot come into being can judge the strength of the feeling out of which alone such work turned away as it is from immediate, practical life, can grow."

"The most beautiful and profound emotion we can experience," he wrote "is the mystical. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. This insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, also has given rise to religion. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms--this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong in the ranks of devoutly religious men.

"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own--a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human fraility. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism. It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we can dimly perceive, and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in nature.

"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God."

"The most incomprehensible thing about the world," he said on another occasion, "is that it is comprehensible."

Ok first things first. I want you to go to this link and read the USMB posting guidelines that you agreed to follow when you created your profile. Please pay close attention to "Copyright. Link Each "Copy & Paste" to It's Source. Only paste a small to medium section of the material."

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Second, I am not a Bible thumper. While I am a Christian and a person of faith, my views on the Bible are FAR from traditional. I approach the Bible from a position of faith, but also with a strong emphasis on history, cultural history, ancient languages, science and theoretical physics, and critical scholarship all of which I have studied for over 30 years and incorporated into my belief system.

Third, I know who Albert Einstein is. Your ridiculously long, presumptuous, and condescending post detailing his achievements and beliefs is nothing I didn't already know.

Fourth, your ridiculously long post detailing his achievements and beliefs does nothing to refute Einstein's own words that it pissed him off royally when people like you attempt to support atheism by quoting him. If you love and respect Einstein that much you should respect his wishes and stop using what he says to support your personal opinion.

 

[Bonzi]

Personally, I do not believe in hell or Satan

What do you think the fiery furnace is referencing in Revelation 21:8?

But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Personally, I do not believe in hell or Satan

What do you think the fiery furnace is referencing in Revelation 21:8?

But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death

'Hell' and 'Satan' are contrivances of man, myths and fables from our ancient past – completely unreal and false.

And quoting the bible fails as an appeal to authority fallacy.

 

[Bonzi]

Personally, I do not believe in hell or Satan

What do you think the fiery furnace is referencing in Revelation 21:8?

But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death

'Hell' and 'Satan' are contrivances of man, myths and fables from our ancient past – completely unreal and false.

And quoting the bible fails as an appeal to authority fallacy.

Was I typing to you? No, I think not.

 

[BluePhantom]

Personally, I do not believe in hell or Satan

What do you think the fiery furnace is referencing in Revelation 21:8?

But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death

Well there are a lot of ways to look at this. Even though I cringe at the thought of writing all this out again, I will do it for you because I know you want to learn and whether you accept what I am going to say or not as truth, it will give you a perspective that is based more in history and less in tradition. My hope is that you take it, research it for yourself and reach your own conclusions with an open mind. In other words, I am doing this because it is you. Honestly I would not do this for anyone else.

This gets really complex. First we have to realize that the Bible didn't just drop out of the sky one day in its entirety. Between the New and Old Testament it took thousands of years to write it. Genesis alone is even more amazing because where the rest of the Bible was written over a period of...oh...1,000 years depending on who you ask, Genesis alone took even longer to come together. Well a lot of things happen over that many years. Concepts that existed at one point no longer exist because society has moved on or there have been changes in the world in some way. Similarly, some issues that were not addressed by earlier scripture arise for the same reasons. The concept didn't exist when Genesis was written but it arose a thousand years later as a result of changes in society, war and conquest, famine, natural disaster....all sorts of things. So new issues created new traditions and 500 years later those traditions were written in new scripture. So in looking at the evolution of the Bible there is a cycle where scripture doesn't cover a new issue, that creates tradition to solve the issue, and hundreds of years later that tradition creates new scripture. It's a fascinating cycle and one of the things that is very interesting is to watch the evolution of God and evil as it relates to suffering according to the Jews, and later the Christians, from Genesis through Revelation in regard to historical events and issues that arose over the centuries.

You will notice that in Torah and the earlier books God is ALL things. This is why God is portrayed as being such a hard ass. Things happened that were a real bummer for the early Israelites and they explaining it with the depiction of God as very strict and vengeful. It made sense because, early on, the Jews were not following the Law very well. They were engaged in wars among themselves, they were not caring for each other or following what the Levites (priestly tribe) were telling them to do. So they rationalized their suffering by saying "we are not following the Law, therefore God is not obligated to His part of the covenant and He has a right to be pissed." During this time,neither hell nor Satan is ever referenced in the Bible nor any other writings. The concepts simply had not been invented yet in Jewish culture.

Later, the Jews really started to follow the Law and they really did it right. They observed the rituals, they did what they were told....they got it figured out and they were following the Law. But they were still suffering and soon came the Babylonian conquest, the exile of the Jews from the Holy Land and the Diaspora. How can they explain this? They were following the Law and holding up their end of the bargain. Why was God not holding up His end and continuing to allow them to suffer? Their solution was to create a force that was the antithesis of God that battled with God for dominion over the Earth. That force was, of course, Satan. Satan, in effect, absolved God from the responsibility for their suffering.

It is no coincidence that Satan begins to make appearances in the Bible right around the time of the Babylonian exile because that was their way to explain why God allowed them to be conquered and dispersed. Now Satan's earliest appearance is in Job and we can see that his depiction is very different than the dragon we see in Revelation. In Job, Satan is not so much "evil" as he is an antagonist. He argues with God and kind of acts as the spirit that gives God the contrary argument. Even in Job, God is still a bit of an asshole. I mean at the end Job asks why God did this to him and God basically says "who the hell are you to question me? Fuck you! I am God and I will do what I want" But as time passes and new books are written, Satan becomes more and more evil and more and more negative forces and attributes get thrown on Satan and positive forces and attributes are given to God. By the time the New Testament was written several centuries later that split had become very dramatic and this is why God is such a hard ass in genesis, but by the time the New Testament is written, God is full of love and forgiveness. All the negative attributes had been taken away from God and given to Satan.

But by this time you are talking 600 years or so of tradition and that was stringently reinforced by the strict interpretations of the Pharisees and Essenes especially, and to a lesser degree the Sadducees. So the concept of Satan was embedded in the Jewish mind. So when Christians began to write their books that would later become the New Testament, that tradition of evil and Satan was already firmly implanted in their philosophical understanding and they expanded upon it.

Christians (not Jews) began to rationalize that if heaven is a place for the righteous to go and receive reward, there must be a place where the unrighteous go to receive punishment. With this reasoning, hell was invented but it was invented years after the death of Jesus and the authorship of the earliest New Testament texts. The Bible itself, when read in Greek and Hebrew, actually makes no mention of hell as a place of eternal punishment for the unrighteous. That came FAR later. In the 1st Century, when the unrighteous died they were simply dead, their spirit was extinguished and that was that. Paul's entire argument about Jesus as the Messiah was that Jesus had beaten death. For Paul, prior to his conversion and consistent with Jewish belief at the time, once you died you were simply dead. You ceased to exist and that was it. Only 144,000 (12,000 from each of the 12 tribes) would go to heaven. But when Paul saw that Jesus had beaten death it meant that heaven was open to everyone because death was no longer a finality.

Now when we get to Revelation we have to take a lot of things into account and each issue would be a thread unto itself. Now just so you know Revelation is the book upon which I am the strongest. I have engaged in more study on Revelation from faith based, historical, cultural, linguistic, political, and rhetorical perspectives than any other book in the Bible so we are going to my bread and butter here. What John of Patmos is referencing is the "second death". By the time Revelation was written, Paul's argument of beating death had taken firm command of Christian thought and while the concept of hell was still a few years away, the origins of its development had started to come into existence. The second death was the complete annihilation of all that was evil. In Revelation, Satan is cast into the Lake of Fire and during the Millennium, Satan burns there. At the end of the Millennium, all the unrighteous are cast into the Lake with Satan and they experience the "second death" which is not just a physical death (or the "first death") but the annihilation of the spirit and all evil in totality. There is no eternal torment and suffering in Revelation...God destroys it all and extinguishes even the spirits of those who were unrighteous.

Thus we come full circle. New Jerusalem is established on Earth. Evil is completely absent. God lives in harmony and in personal contact with man again. We have returned to Genesis and the garden of Eden and with this God's victory is established both on Earth and in the spiritual realm.

I hope that all makes sense

 

[BluePhantom]

BTW...my audio lectures are available through my website for $35.00 or you can download them there for $20.

Just being a smart ass.

 

[BluePhantom]

'Hell' and 'Satan' are contrivances of man, myths and fables from our ancient past – completely unreal and false.

And as evidenced from my previous post...and as much as it burns my ass...I have to agree with you, but not for the same reasons, I would imagine. You believe that all spirituality is bullshit. I respectfully disagree, but I do agree that hell and Satan are bullshit.


BTW...I am STILL waiting for your explanation on why a person is charged with two counts of murder when they kill a pregnant woman if a fetus is not legally a life. So far I haven't heard a single pro-choice adherent even TRY to explain the contradiction. Seriously, oh master of law and the constitution...I am waiting for your explanation.....so far your silence is deafening. I am a reasonable guy with an open mind and I think I am relatively intelligent. Here is your opportunity to educate me.

 

[Bonzi]

Personally, I do not believe in hell or Satan

What do you think the fiery furnace is referencing in Revelation 21:8?

But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death

Well there are a lot of ways to look at this. Even though I cringe at the thought of writing all this out again, I will do it for you because I know you want to learn and whether you accept what I am going to say or not as truth, it will give you a perspective that is based more in history and less in tradition. My hope is that you take it, research it for yourself and reach your own conclusions with an open mind. In other words, I am doing this because it is you. Honestly I would not do this for anyone else.

This gets really complex. First we have to realize that the Bible didn't just drop out of the sky one day in its entirety. Between the New and Old Testament it took thousands of years to write it. Genesis alone is even more amazing because where the rest of the Bible was written over a period of...oh...1,000 years depending on who you ask, Genesis alone took even longer to come together. Well a lot of things happen over that many years. Concepts that existed at one point no longer exist because society has moved on or there have been changes in the world in some way. Similarly, some issues that were not addressed by earlier scripture arise for the same reasons. The concept didn't exist when Genesis was written but it arose a thousand years later as a result of changes in society, war and conquest, famine, natural disaster....all sorts of things. So new issues created new traditions and 500 years later those traditions were written in new scripture. So in looking at the evolution of the Bible there is a cycle where scripture doesn't cover a new issue, that creates tradition to solve the issue, and hundreds of years later that tradition creates new scripture. It's a fascinating cycle and one of the things that is very interesting is to watch the evolution of God and evil as it relates to suffering according to the Jews, and later the Christians, from Genesis through Revelation in regard to historical events and issues that arose over the centuries.

You will notice that in Torah and the earlier books God is ALL things. This is why God is portrayed as being such a hard ass. Things happened that were a real bummer for the early Israelites and they explaining it with the depiction of God as very strict and vengeful. It made sense because, early on, the Jews were not following the Law very well. They were engaged in wars among themselves, they were not caring for each other or following what the Levites (priestly tribe) were telling them to do. So they rationalized their suffering by saying "we are not following the Law, therefore God is not obligated to His part of the covenant and He has a right to be pissed." During this time,neither hell nor Satan is ever referenced in the Bible nor any other writings. The concepts simply had not been invented yet in Jewish culture.

Later, the Jews really started to follow the Law and they really did it right. They observed the rituals, they did what they were told....they got it figured out and they were following the Law. But they were still suffering and soon came the Babylonian conquest, the exile of the Jews from the Holy Land and the Diaspora. How can they explain this? They were following the Law and holding up their end of the bargain. Why was God not holding up His end and continuing to allow them to suffer? Their solution was to create a force that was the antithesis of God that battled with God for dominion over the Earth. That force was, of course, Satan. Satan, in effect, absolved God from the responsibility for their suffering.

It is no coincidence that Satan begins to make appearances in the Bible right around the time of the Babylonian exile because that was their way to explain why God allowed them to be conquered and dispersed. Now Satan's earliest appearance is in Job and we can see that his depiction is very different than the dragon we see in Revelation. In Job, Satan is not so much "evil" as he is an antagonist. He argues with God and kind of acts as the spirit that gives God the contrary argument. Even in Job, God is still a bit of an asshole. I mean at the end Job asks why God did this to him and God basically says "who the hell are you to question me? Fuck you! I am God and I will do what I want" But as time passes and new books are written, Satan becomes more and more evil and more and more negative forces and attributes get thrown on Satan and positive forces and attributes are given to God. By the time the New Testament was written several centuries later that split had become very dramatic and this is why God is such a hard ass in genesis, but by the time the New Testament is written, God is full of love and forgiveness. All the negative attributes had been taken away from God and given to Satan.

But by this time you are talking 600 years or so of tradition and that was stringently reinforced by the strict interpretations of the Pharisees and Essenes especially, and to a lesser degree the Sadducees. So the concept of Satan was embedded in the Jewish mind. So when Christians began to write their books that would later become the New Testament, that tradition of evil and Satan was already firmly implanted in their philosophical understanding and they expanded upon it.

Christians (not Jews) began to rationalize that if heaven is a place for the righteous to go and receive reward, there must be a place where the unrighteous go to receive punishment. With this reasoning, hell was invented but it was invented years after the death of Jesus and the authorship of the earliest New Testament texts. The Bible itself, when read in Greek and Hebrew, actually makes no mention of hell as a place of eternal punishment for the unrighteous. That came FAR later. In the 1st Century, when the unrighteous died they were simply dead, their spirit was extinguished and that was that. Paul's entire argument about Jesus as the Messiah was that Jesus had beaten death. For Paul, prior to his conversion and consistent with Jewish belief at the time, once you died you were simply dead. You ceased to exist and that was it. Only 144,000 (12,000 from each of the 12 tribes) would go to heaven. But when Paul saw that Jesus had beaten death it meant that heaven was open to everyone because death was no longer a finality.

Now when we get to Revelation we have to take a lot of things into account and each issue would be a thread unto itself. Now just so you know Revelation is the book upon which I am the strongest. I have engaged in more study on Revelation from faith based, historical, cultural, linguistic, political, and rhetorical perspectives than any other book in the Bible so we are going to my bread and butter here. What John of Patmos is referencing is the "second death". By the time Revelation was written, Paul's argument of beating death had taken firm command of Christian thought and while the concept of hell was still a few years away, the origins of its development had started to come into existence. The second death was the complete annihilation of all that was evil. In Revelation, Satan is cast into the Lake of Fire and during the Millennium, Satan burns there. At the end of the Millennium, all the unrighteous are cast into the Lake with Satan and they experience the "second death" which is not just a physical death (or the "first death") but the annihilation of the spirit and all evil in totality. There is no eternal torment and suffering in Revelation...God destroys it all and extinguishes even the spirits of those who were unrighteous.

Thus we come full circle. New Jerusalem is established on Earth. Evil is completely absent. God lives in harmony and in personal contact with man again. We have returned to Genesis and the garden of Eden and with this God's victory is established both on Earth and in the spiritual realm.

I hope that all makes sense

Thanks BP, I appreciate your taking the time to do that. Very interesting. I will discuss this with my Pastor. He is super "book smart" on this stuff - I'll let you know what he says too

 

[Campbell]

Personally, I do not believe in hell or Satan

What do you think the fiery furnace is referencing in Revelation 21:8?

But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death

'Hell' and 'Satan' are contrivances of man, myths and fables from our ancient past – completely unreal and false.

And quoting the bible fails as an appeal to authority fallacy.

I couldn't have said it better. Shit written by ancient mankind 500 years before paper was invented means two things....they believed in witches, shit on the ground and wiped on their hands.

I might add that they believed the earth was flat:

 

[Bonzi]

My belief actually goes more toward personal experience and relationship with God.
The Bible makes a lot of sense (to me) and it ties together. The bottom line is it's about Jesus (even the OT).
The Bible even discusses how man will have great intellect, but no wisdom or knowledge of the truth.
But, a non-Christian can't understand or see this. So, it seems "stupid" to them.