duke nukem

It may not be the same in all churches, but in a few of the ones I have attended preachers tell the congregation that God can provide for you and that all you need to do is pray. Why then do Churches need to take money from people? Can the church members not just instead pray that the Church will receive money and then, I don't know buy a lottery ticket or something?

At what point can you say that someone is Gay, Straight, Lesbian or Bisexual?

I mean clearly we don't apply a sexual preference to infants or toddlers. Is sexuality determinable at puberty? Or is it not until the individual actually starts being sexually active?

Just because it has been proven that people have genetic predispositions to choosing Gay or Straight does not make it less of a choice.

The only way it is not a choice is if someone forces you to choose it. I choose to be straight, and yes I think it is primarily because I was born with the mindset to be attracted to the opposite sex.

I do not dislike homosexuals, I have family members that are, and I think everyone has the right to make their own decisions.

What are your thoughts?

If this is truly an issue God is opposed to, why doesn't he himself do something about it? He is all-powerful right? He could just change the minds of people, or punish them, etc.

If God doesn't take it upon himself to stop homosexuals, what gives Religious people the right to judge them or prevent them from getting married?

People think Congress called pizza a vegetable,

Politicians are mostly Christian.

FIRST post what you think is the percentage of the World's population that shares your view.

I was recently searching for statistics on the Religious views of the World and was intrigued by the numbers I found.

I imagine many other people might be surprised to find out the statistics for their religion, BUT before you look it up I advise you all to take a guess and post it. Then try to look it up and see if you were right about how many people follow your religion.

I know not all statistics are accurate, but I am finding roughly the same ranges by most sources.

I feel safer for some reason here in the R&S section, am I homophobic for feeling uncomfortable answering questions in the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender category?

I know we say that the planets orbit the Sun, but is the sun actually a fixed object or is it moving as well? I mean do we really have the ability to know if it is moving relative to the universe at some tiny amount? And do other stars move or are they also somehow fixed to one position in the universe?

The only reason someone would oppose same-sex marriage is because they just dislike gay people. There is no other reason to oppose it. The Bible is no more against same-sex marriage as it is for slavery and slavery was abolished, so why does this obvious discrimination against homosexuals continue?

This is a serious question. I saw Tony's troll thread and am now curious as to whether or not Atheists really oppose gay marriage.

I am Atheist, have gay family members, and am very much for the right of same-sex couples to get married.

I have given this some thought. If a god exists (which I doubt) why should I worship him?

If he is benevolent he would not send me to a place of torture for all eternity.

If he is malevolent and he would do such a thing, then he is not worthy of my worship.

Also, if such a being exists, is all powerful and wanted to be worshiped why does he not tell us all personally? If he is supposedly Omnipotent then this would be an easy feat, yet we are supposed to rely on a book to inform us that he wants us to worship him.

Because, I would imagine it would be quite difficult to sneak past an All-Knowing God.

The Christians claim that Jesus died for their sins.

Why didn't God just wave a magic wand or something and make their sins go away? He can do whatever the heck he wants, I mean he makes his own rules right? Did he really have to kill his son/himself?

How is that one idea itself not enough to make Christians realize the backwards logic of their religion?

If God is all-powerful yet Satan who is pure evil is able to defend against God, doesn't that make Satan just as powerful if not more powerful than God?

If I were to get on anyone's good side I would want to be on Satan's that way he might have mercy on me. If God is not strong enough to defeat Satan then it would probably be a good idea to not make Satan angry.

So who else thinks it would be a good idea to dedicate their after-life to serve the mighty Satan?

I am not sure how many people actually believe in those world is ending conspiracies but if you do believe, what will you do if it doesn't end?

If you believe it will end as part of your religion will you give up on your religious beliefs or will you just jump on board with the next "end of the world" conspiracy?

My last question about atheism brought more questions to mind. Several people said something along the lines of:

"having no concept of God or gods at birth makes you an agnostic not an atheist." or "You must have have a concept of God to not believe in it"

But isn't it the other way around? Without a concept of something we start out not believing in it. An agnostic must have a concept of God in order to debate its existence.

I have heard the statement before, I believe it was from Richard Dawkins, but my question is that since we are born without a knowledge of God are we technically atheists from birth?

We become Christians, Muslims or some other religious identity after we learn about it. So i'm just curious to hear what you guys think about it.

Just curious about this because of an e-mail my family was forwarding around. So what do you all think?