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[miltiades]

Saravacos , I'm Greek Cypriot Orthodox by birth , non believer in the creator by choice. I do not believe in the existence of God or a power that determines the direction of this or any other world by selective means.
I have tremendous respect for many religious beliefs and philosophies that go hand in hand with religious teachings.
As a way of life , religion can be a guiding force for a moral upbringing that teaches you to do all the things for instance the 10 commandments. Where religion and I depart is when common decency and sense take a secondary position to religious teachings as interpreted by scholars as gospel. I condemn all violence carried out by people that believe they are doing god's work.
My children were christened in the Orthodox church as is our tradition to so . My views were nor aired when the children were young , but now they are adults and can decide for them selves hence they know of my beliefs.
I still think that religion , or fanatical adherence to a faith , can lead to human misery and divisions.

[andri_cy]

Saravacos , I'm Greek Cypriot Orthodox by birth , non believer in the creator by choice. I do not believe in the existence of God or a power that determines the direction of this or any other world by selective means.
I have tremendous respect for many religious beliefs and philosophies that go hand in hand with religious teachings.
As a way of life , religion can be a guiding force for a moral upbringing that teaches you to do all the things for instance the 10 commandments. Where religion and I depart is when common decency and sense take a secondary position to religious teachings as interpreted by scholars as gospel. I condemn all violence carried out by people that believe they are doing god's work.
My children were christened in the Orthodox church as is our tradition to so . My views were nor aired when the children were young , but now they are adults and can decide for them selves hence they know of my beliefs.
I still think that religion , or fanatical adherence to a faith , can lead to human misery and divisions.

Miltiades for a person your age I would expect you to know the difference between religion and the way fanatics interprete it to suit them in their unholly causes. Are you going to tell me that when the Bible or the Qu'ran were written those people wrote them so in 2006 or 2002 someone would use them so thousands of people are killed? Thats pretty silly. Religions and their scripts arent to blame for anything. The religion itself isnt telling anyone to go kill a bunch of people-in the contrary. The fact that people use it as an excuse isnt proof that the creator doesnt exist. As far as condemning all violence carried out by people that believe they are doing god's work goes we all do. That doesnt mean that the way some idiots use religion to cover their atrocities is going to make us all renounce god.

[Leonidas]

Our New Testament and the Koran are not that far off. Both where written based on the Old Testament.

How people translated them are another story.

Good Bye Al-Zarqawi and good riddance.

Mohamed did NOT talk about Jihad. He talked about peace just like Jesus did.

[miltiades]

Andry , for some reason , and you have expressed such sentiments before , you are excusing religion by saying that its only a minority who commit despicable crimes and use religion as an excuse.
Religious hatred has existed since the beginning .The old testament is full of examples of brutality and murders committed , or attributed to God ,. It is precicely because of my age that I can feel comfortable in stating categorically that there is no God , for me , never has been a God and never will be. To comprehend this you will have to do a hell of a lot of soul searching , put the book away,whether is the bible or any other book and logically test your faith based on realities , 6 million Jews comes to mind , where the hell was your GOD OR THEIRS ,
recently The Tsunami , 250 thousands lost their lives , and yet when an 87 year old woman was found alive after 10 days , guess what , it was a miracle. !!
The people need God , the ancient Greeks needed more than one , I and millions upon millions of people do not need God. Death doesn't scare me , my lifespan is that of my predecessors going back thousands of years , we come without asking to come and we go. What matters is what we leave behind for the next generations to come.

[andri_cy]

Andry , for some reason , and you have expressed such sentiments before , you are excusing religion by saying that its only a minority who commit despicable crimes and use religion as an excuse.
Religious hatred has existed since the beginning .The old testament is full of examples of brutality and murders committed , or attributed to God ,. It is precicely because of my age that I can feel comfortable in stating categorically that there is no God , for me , never has been a God and never will be. To comprehend this you will have to do a hell of a lot of soul searching , put the book away,whether is the bible or any other book and logically test your faith based on realities , 6 million Jews comes to mind , where the hell was your GOD OR THEIRS ,
recently The Tsunami , 250 thousands lost their lives , and yet when an 87 year old woman was found alive after 10 days , guess what , it was a miracle. !!
The people need God , the ancient Greeks needed more than one , I and millions upon millions of people do not need God. Death doesn't scare me , my lifespan is that of my predecessors going back thousands of years , we come without asking to come and we go. What matters is what we leave behind for the next generations to come.

Miltiades I am not going to talk with you about religion and how people use it because it is clear we have different views and there is no point in arguing. You choose not to believe and I choose to believe. Religion as a concept is holy and it is good. How people use it it is a different thing. (God or his disciples in either the bible or the Qu'ran did not say go kill for me. Some of the leaders might have used religion throughout the centuries to take advantage of people, but that is people doing that not the religion itself. )You use it to support the fact that it is there makes people do crazy things. I use it to highlight the fact that faith helps us keep hope up and go on with our everyday lives. You have the right to be a non-believer and I have the right to be the opposite. I dont go to church every Sunday and dont fast but I believe there is a God out there, that doesnt of course control or manipulate everything we do or dont do but He listens and sometimes answers. Maybe a 87 year old being found to you is a joke but for those people digging her up, digging an alive person rather than another body, it is a miracle. I guess it all depends on how you look at life, how bitter you are or are not, and wether you have the strength to believe in something you cannot see or touch.

[betting guru]

Im pretty sure if you add up the lives that have been lost due to religion through wars and religous maniacs and the lives saved by religion via so called miracles then I think good deeds would be heavily outnumbered by bad deeds.

There would without doubt be more people alive today and more people living without being persecuted daily if religion never existed. FACT.

[miltiades]

Andri , I was brought up in a religious environment just as you were . I wouldn't dream of even trying to argue with you on the subject of "Is there a God" I respect your commitment to your beliefs just as I'm sure you respect mine . When the 87 year old was found alive and God was praised for this "miracle" I couldn't help crediting the miracle account with one or maybe a dozen miracles , but the debit side run into thousands and thousands.
I have argued the "is there a God " concept on at least a million occasions always ended up with the same conclusion. There is no God. There are so many values in life that one can identify with , like family , decency , caring for others , loving your fellow humans with out he need to resort to mythology.

[andri_cy]

Im pretty sure if you add up the lives that have been lost due to religion through wars and religous maniacs and the lives saved by religion via so called miracles then I think good deeds would be heavily outnumbered by bad deeds.

There would without doubt be more people alive today and more people living without being persecuted daily if religion never existed. FACT.

I am not going to argue with you. Like I said you have the right to be a non-believer as well as miltiades does and I have the right to believe. We see religion through different perspectives and thats how life is.

[raymanuva]

i dont give a **** if he is dead or alive... whatever to make those petrol prices to go down.... kill Bush?

[Sotos]

Bush should be next He is responsible for more deaths than al-Zarqawi!