OK, Multi-verse! The Universe we live in has an end or edge to it (like a huge expanding bubble) and it formed when to other such universes collided into each other. That is another option.

For your question on where did the universe come from, we don't know for sure. FACT! But we know it is expanding at an accelerated rate. If you want to read some Stephen Hawking for a better detailed guess, that would be better than me pasting a bunch of quotes.

Very nice. I liked this explanation.

I don't know if this was in jest or not, but I will bite that it was not. If it was in jest, disregard this.

Just start reading this thread. At about my 5th post I will explain to you why what you just wrote is absurd. Don't misunderstand me though. Sometimes Religion or community rec centers or friends gathering do all have a positive effect on people. They can be a great support group for helping each other out. It is when they start telling you how to live your life instead of just caring for each other, that is when it starts to turn ugly.

Sorry Dave, nothing more deep from me. I wrote "I do know, with certainty". Of course the truth is, I can't know. Could your God and Jesus be correct? Sure, it's possible -- in the "anything's possible" sense.

But I know a fairy tale when I see one -- that's all I was saying. And the Christianity fairy tale is just like all the others. I don't think I can say this enough: From the inside, your story looks better to you than the other stories. But believe me, all the other believers in other religions are thinking the exact same thing about their religion.

Is there something more to life that none of us understand? Maybe. In the entire history of man, and the entire population of the world, do the Christians have it right with this Jesus/God thing? No.

How do I know? Well, as you yourself said in the same post:
At a certain point of certainty, “faith” comes “truth”.

I was actually talking about matter & energy either being eternal in nature or having been created (hence a creator). Your possible explanation here does not add another option.....it just rolls it back to another universe.

I stand by my response:
"What is most logical to me is that I do not know what eternity is and I do not know anything other than chronological time. Given the theories of relativity, we do know that "chronological" is not an absolute, so suggesting that there is a reality outside of chronological time is not quite as science fictiony as it once was. "Always" then does not have the same meaning as you are using it."

And, I will add to it that there are hundreds of prophecies about Jesus that were made hundreds and hundreds of years before his life.......that were fulfilled. The mathematical chance of this happening by coincidence is incredibly small. Therefore the probability that there is a God who is somehow "above" chronological time and can predict the future is well beyond the level that a lot of science deems as "truth".

Now, cue the music for the challenges to the historicity of the texts.

Hey - you are intellectually honest enough to admit that there might be more to life than what can be measured with the physical sciences. If you ever feel the need to go on and seek for whatever that might be, it can be an exciting adventure to ask the questions and knock on the doors.

I will be very highly surprised if I am not very highly surprised by how things really "work" and "look" when things are revealed (yes I do believe in an afterlife). I am fully expecting things to look a whole lot different than I can possibly imagine (that's why I spend little time imagining in concrete terms).

Sorry, Donovan, I don't buy it. If someone says to be, "Jesus saved me" or some such, that's fine with me. I don't have an issue with it. If he's found benefit, then good for him.

Imo where the whole business goes astray lies in the distinction between "religion" and "church". Religion is a belief that a person has internally that does not depend on external logic or verifiability - it's true for him, therefore it's true.

Church is the institutionalization of religion - it's the buildings and the priests (or whatever) and the music and the window-dressing. I don't doubt that some form of institutionalization is necessary to ensure that a belief system perseveres through history, but the issue (for me) comes up when the church demands prosetylization. You have to go knock doors for two years, or stand on the streetcorner with magazines, or simply talk to people and try to get them to change their evil ways.

Again if the impulse to shout from the rooftops is heartfelt and genuine, I won't tell the guy to STFU (unless I'm putting, of course). Trying to figure out whether or not it's genuine, again imo, is a waste of time. If you don't want to listen to it, just walk away.

While I agree with what you are saying, I am inclined to say it really goes one step farther: Religion is the set of actions (often formalized) that are an outgrowth of a relationship. If I am semantically splitting hairs with what you are already saying - sorry (if that is the case, then I am just clarifying. ).

Too many times "religion" (the action) becomes disconnected from the relationship from where they (the actions) originated....as a response.

At the heart/core/center of Church/religion/spirituality there must be a vibrant and meaningful two-way relationship with the source and reason for said Church/religion/spirituality. In my experience and observation, that is the crux of the matter and what every Jesus follower is challenged with. In my estimation, that is what the Beatitudes are all about.....and really the entire Sermon on the Mount.

Dave, your approach seems to focus on the functional aspect of religious belief: I have a relationship with my Creator, and I manifest that relationship in these ways - a, b, c, ... n." I have no issue with that, even as it extends to the outreach activities that some people find objectionable.

A more structural approach could address - not justify, but perhaps put into perspective - those historical periods in which organized religion perpetrated actions clearly in violation of senior laws such as the Ten Commandments.

As to the Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount are concerned, well, you're wa-a-ay ahead of me there, buddy. Looks like I've got some reading to do if I wanna catch up