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The Official Religion Thread
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OJdaKiller
Member
Greg Graffin is the most influential man in punk rock history....
Oops...Thought this was the official BAD Relgion Thread....wa....wah....wwaaaahh....
Oops...Thought this was the official BAD Relgion Thread....wa....wah....wwaaaahh....
Crumpet Trumpet
Banned
I was at the Smut for Smut table today, 'twas funny :lol
Catholic here.I respect all religions, I understand/am cool with atheism. I'd also be willing to answer any questions about you guys may have, a lot of religion threads are filled with confusion/misunderstanding. I hope those of other faiths in the future could also help me out to understand their beliefs, b/c as far as religion goes I don't know much besides the basics outside of Catholicism.
OJdaKiller
Member
RevDM said:
Doesn't he teach at UC-Berkley? Also I want to say his PhD is in evolutionary biology. Could be wrong. It'd be awesome to take a class from him, but it'd be nerve racking asking him a question...Because he's fucking GREG GRAFFIN!
RustyNails
Member
GhaleonQ
Member
http://www.getreligion.org
http://www.therevealer.org
A great conservative take on religion reporting is Get Religion, and The Revealer is there for you liberals.
http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/religion-blogosphere/religion-blogosphere-a2
There are 100 religion reporting sites.
(Missouri Synod Lutheran, here).
http://www.therevealer.org
A great conservative take on religion reporting is Get Religion, and The Revealer is there for you liberals.
http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/religion-blogosphere/religion-blogosphere-a2
There are 100 religion reporting sites.
(Missouri Synod Lutheran, here).
I won't get into religion in general because my opinions are rather extreme in regards to my belief that religion is pure evil.
I will say however that whenever a sports player or actor/musician thanks god for their success I get the urge to stab them in the face. The idea that god has any interest in your stupid fucking game, shitty movie, or boring album is so incredibly egoistical and arrogant. God doesn't give two shits about you, your superbowl, your record sales, or your career.
And on a smaller level, God also doesn't care about your marriage, your new born child, your promotion, your good luck, or anything to do with you in general. How about you thank the people who deserve it, the people that suppprted you, loved you, helped you, trained you, taught you, and made you the person you are today. Stop thanking an entity that you don't even truly understand who cares nothing for you.
When your plane lands safely in a river after an emergency, its not a damn miracle of god, its a remarkable feat performed by a man who you completely dishonor by giving his credit to some make believe concept you have created in the vain attempt to understand something your stupid little mind could never hope to truly conceive.
In other words, shut the fuck up.
There, thats my rant for the week.
I will say however that whenever a sports player or actor/musician thanks god for their success I get the urge to stab them in the face. The idea that god has any interest in your stupid fucking game, shitty movie, or boring album is so incredibly egoistical and arrogant. God doesn't give two shits about you, your superbowl, your record sales, or your career.
And on a smaller level, God also doesn't care about your marriage, your new born child, your promotion, your good luck, or anything to do with you in general. How about you thank the people who deserve it, the people that suppprted you, loved you, helped you, trained you, taught you, and made you the person you are today. Stop thanking an entity that you don't even truly understand who cares nothing for you.
When your plane lands safely in a river after an emergency, its not a damn miracle of god, its a remarkable feat performed by a man who you completely dishonor by giving his credit to some make believe concept you have created in the vain attempt to understand something your stupid little mind could never hope to truly conceive.
In other words, shut the fuck up.
There, thats my rant for the week.
ElectricBlue187
Member
The FSM is displeased by your not including him in the OP. May his noodly appendage touch you and change your heathen ways.
RustyNails
Member
...and this is why I avoid threads like these. So much hostility. Peace out.missbreedsiddx said:
Dice
Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
If you want to learn about different religions, just for straight-up info of their origins and the differences between factions and whatnot, check out http://www.religioustolerance.org/
ClovingWestbrook
Banned
Dice
Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
From what I can gather, you are a theist, yet believe that God is detached from humanity, or perhaps completely impersonal like "the force" or something. Yes?missbreedsiddx said:
Just wondering. I mean, I don't understand the anger. Some people believe in a personal God. For instance, in Christianity the basic concept is that God is infinite in all ways, and so it's not like special attention, but that infinity divided by infinity is infinity, so he can care for everyone and all their stupid little things all at once. It's not like he's so into his overall plan that he has no mind for us.
If you have a different view of God, why are you angry at those who have such a view? I've never understood anger over a simple difference of perspective.
However, anger over people making cheap posts of animated GIFs in an attempt to be funny over a topic very close to the heart of many here is another issue. Come on guys, we have had very good and respectable discussion threads on hot-button issues before. Why can't we have one for religion? Let's just put the fighting aside and make this a place for learning about each other, not trying to prove each other wrong.
Could Jesus microwave a burrito so hot, that he himself could not eat it?
Because religion isn't some inert personal philosophy. It guides our laws, our societies, our lives. It causes wars, it affects poverty in positive and negative ways. It accounts for a staggering percentage of the total world expenditure and income. It is, in short, a gigantic force that shapes everyone's life.
So for atheists, it's like being taxed by a completely foreign country that you've never been to.
Dice said:
Because religion isn't some inert personal philosophy. It guides our laws, our societies, our lives. It causes wars, it affects poverty in positive and negative ways. It accounts for a staggering percentage of the total world expenditure and income. It is, in short, a gigantic force that shapes everyone's life.
So for atheists, it's like being taxed by a completely foreign country that you've never been to.
ClovingWestbrook
Banned
Dice said:
I think the reason we are posting gifs is we know the end result of a topic such as this. It has been done to death and unfortunately like most topics that are close to heart, it cannot be discussed with an open and sensitive manner; at least not on the web.
RustyNails
Member
Pretty much. Just wait till some of the more "holier than thou" members arrive on their shining horse made up of nothing but ego and perfect grammar. Peace out for real.LovingSteam said:
Dice said:
Sometimes people just rant to rant, it doesn't mean it comes from anger. It's 3 in the morning and I just watched a video of some prick lavishing praise on god for saving him without saying a word about the people who saved his life, the medics, doctors, nurses, friends and family that helped him. That is offensive to me as a human being who believes in the furthering of humanity through mutual appreciation that I believe can only be completely achieved when we stop bringing god into the picture and focus on each other.
I am not a theist, or agnostic or any cute term people come up with. I know what I feel, and I trust in what I feel. And thats that we have absolutely no ability to currently understand god in any capacity beyond that fact that we are alone on this planet, with nobody but each other and we need to start acknowledging that if we hope to get along instead of looking to the heavens for answers, love, and understanding. All that can come from the people around us.
It's the oldest conundrum in the book, if god loves us, why would it allow such pain and suffering? And to me, as I cycled through all the logical answers, the only one that made any sense to me was that god is not a being in any sense we can fathom and has no vested interest in us or our lives.
edit: And yes, I expected this topic to get locked long ago, so i'm just emptying my brain before bed. I normally wouldn't jump into a topic like this because like I said, my personal feelings are sure to offend, and very few people on here have annoyed me enough to make me want to offend them, not to mention I learned long ago it falls on deaf ears. But I didnt expect to get this far :\
ElectricBlue187
Member
Himuro said:
what? no. that's not true. Catholicism hardly EVER changes its beliefs and when it does it's usually something extremely minor and it takes centuries to change.
Dice
Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
Could a limitless being expand the limits of a limited object he created to exceed his non-existent limitations of capacity? No, because God is a consistent being and Christianity has never claimed otherwise.OuterWorldVoice said:
You act as though atheist philosophers have made no change to society. All ideas change things. Also I don't understand why we must ignore the most powerful ground of discussion or why we cannot engage it with calm respect.
"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence." -Robert Frost
It has been done on this forum.LovingSteam said:
Dice said:
Atheist philosophers don't affect the world with atheism. If you can think of a single example of atheist philosophy, concerning atheism, as powerful as Pascal's wager, then I'm excited to hear it.
The main effect atheists have on the world is science.
GillianSeed79
Member
Just wanted to say not all atheists are anti-theists. I don't care what you believe in. Not all of those that don't believe should be treated like pariah's just like not all belivers should be treated like stubborn simpletons. It's the assholes on the fringes that turn this into some BS i'm right you're wrong thing.
The Atheism Tapes is a good start btw if religious people want to understand why atheist aren't all crazy.
The Atheism Tapes is a good start btw if religious people want to understand why atheist aren't all crazy.
Himuro said:
:lol Sports players who do that are especially irritating. You are playing a game, a game that millions of people play for fun, for free. The idea that because you get paid too much money to play a game means god has an interest in whether you win or lose is so absurd it makes my head hurt.
Lionheart1337
Member
Atramental said:
Thank you. This was freaking great. :lol
RustyNails
Member
Can you list some major innovations in science/math from athiests? Wouldn't you say communist philosophy/form of government is a bigger affect of Athiesm?OuterWorldVoice said:
RustyNails said:
I'm not saying all scientists are atheists, or that their atheism has some magical effect on their science. Simply that they have a tiltingly atheist demographic.
But let me just throw in the theory of special relativity since you asked.
GillianSeed79 said:
I get your point, but what a semantically and logically bizarre thing to type.
Scythesurge
Member
:lol Wow.Himuro said:
Skittleguy
Ring a Bell for me
RustyNails said:
Dice
Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
Atheism defines modernity. You mention how it changes science, but that is one facet of a much lager effect on epistemology. The world-changing notion is the concept that we cannot know. Thought was forever changed outside religion and within, through science and art, social structures and definitions of personhood.OuterWorldVoice said:
It is atheist in the truest sense, not just that it thinks of us in a separate box from God, but God isn't even in the equation. It is what Francis Schaeffer called belief in "the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system" and it was a complete break from the prior constructs of belief in the natural interacting with the divine.
I actually highly recommend the Francis Schaeffer Trilogy if you want to look into this more. No one else has really covered it so well. You may disagree with his conclusions (Christian) but his tracking of changes in thought and the affect on culture was very insightful. He was a very well educated man and loved to share with thousands of people from all types of backgrounds from all over the world. Heck, if you're an atheist you may even find it encouraging to see how deeply it has penetrated everything.
Also, as RustyNails mentioned, a lot of communism and socialism is based out of humanism, an atheist philosophy.
Catholic here. I understand that people have different beliefs and understand the point of view of atheists and other religions but I do have to say that I'm not a fan of those who look down on other people for their beliefs be that person atheist or religious.
Anyway I'm not totally in support of every point of view the Church has (I'm in support of gay marriage for example) but I still continue for the moral teachings and life improvement it offers (sometimes).
Anyway I'm not totally in support of every point of view the Church has (I'm in support of gay marriage for example) but I still continue for the moral teachings and life improvement it offers (sometimes).
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
I can talk extensively about atheism (the respectful religion-friendly kind, rather than "root of all evil is religion" types)... but in this thread I'd really like to answer questions about Buddhism, if they come up. I have a good decade of study on that matter.
Science actually causes atheism. And communism also goes hand in hand atheism, but does not necessarily follow from it. Read first before kneejerk posting:
That isn't to say that science necessarily leads to atheism, or that atheism is something that "smart people will agree with". But certainly science is a way of making judgments about the world based upon evidence rather than societal assumptions... in a way it leads to a way of thinking in which anything that cannot be quantified doesn't exist. Even in a world where God does exist, one who embraces science fully, in a dogmatic way, would never find a way to measure this God, so it doesn't exist for him.
Communism also embraces atheism, because in its essence, it is a way of rejecting all of societies previous institutions including state and church. You couldn't have a revolutionary ideal without also perceiving the old institutions of the church as some sort of king or capitalist-enabling myth. I feel that communism could exist in a theist context in some other world, but the thing is that in our current world of long established churches, communists will fight against those things which they perceive as being elements of the old society.
I don't think that atheism necessarily leads to communism... but neither is it responsable for science.RustyNails said:
Science actually causes atheism. And communism also goes hand in hand atheism, but does not necessarily follow from it. Read first before kneejerk posting:
That isn't to say that science necessarily leads to atheism, or that atheism is something that "smart people will agree with". But certainly science is a way of making judgments about the world based upon evidence rather than societal assumptions... in a way it leads to a way of thinking in which anything that cannot be quantified doesn't exist. Even in a world where God does exist, one who embraces science fully, in a dogmatic way, would never find a way to measure this God, so it doesn't exist for him.
Communism also embraces atheism, because in its essence, it is a way of rejecting all of societies previous institutions including state and church. You couldn't have a revolutionary ideal without also perceiving the old institutions of the church as some sort of king or capitalist-enabling myth. I feel that communism could exist in a theist context in some other world, but the thing is that in our current world of long established churches, communists will fight against those things which they perceive as being elements of the old society.
RustyNails
Member
At the very least, Einstein did not consider himself as an athiest. He professed doubts. Not 100% sure though, so feel free to correct me.OuterWorldVoice said:
But saying that current demographic of scientists is tiltingly Athiestic doesn't make much sense in the context of history. Almost everything we take for granted today came from scientists who affiliated themselves with religion centuries ago, even before Renaissance. But I'm not arguing about the existence of Athiest scientists and their contribution. I merely think that Athiests had a bigger contribution in the realm of political thought.
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