Originally Posted by evandixon
Thanks for saying that, randomspot...
(Even though this is a reilgion-related topic, and that I'm a little late to the party,) I've found that any debate that talks about something that relates to someone's religious beliefs, there is little you can do to change their mind or convince them to use proof other than their faith; anything you say that contradicts it will be met with either a quote from their religious scriptures (or whatever else they use to spread its teachings) or some other reason that explains why you're wrong because it conflicts with the faith. Even though I'm aethist (or jokingly, a Consumer Christian: a person that only practices Christianity around religious holidays such as Easter and Christmas to partake in the festivities and uses the holidays as excuses to be merry and celebrate the family and the friend,) I'm not against others believing in their own religions -- they can practice them all they want -- I just don't like it when they try to force it upon others, especially when they put down all others and assume a superior tone when saying things to that effect. I can understand the unwillingness to believe otherwise, but there are other beliefs that they have to be wary of offending.
This picture just about summarizes my opinion about that topic (and some users):
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I must confess that I make ignorant jokes sometimes, but I do it in a light-hearted and sarcastic way. Hell, that's why memes like this (below) get a laugh (at least from me). I truly believe that we need to laugh at ourselves more often, and others too but not so much and in such a way that it becomes discrimination or racism / sexism / 'religionism'(?).
(So, why not keep up with the Fry meme since it covers a lot of things...)
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Can you see how things are just matters of differing interpretations?..
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Now where have I heard that before!..
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Another place where these sort of ignorant debate responses pop up is from people like these...
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Last edited by YuzuruHitokiri; Nov 15th, 2011 at 09:36 PM. Reason: Clarify the sentence above last spoiler...
"Anything too stupid to be said is sung."
Voltaire
"If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door."
Paul Beatty
"We live in a Newtonian world of Einsteinian physics ruled by Frankenstein logic."
David Russell
Interesting discussion, but it irks me when you say any of this is 'truth'. One thing most people fail to realize, is that all religious texts are written by mortal man, and not just written, but retranslated several times over by mortal man. Did you know at one point in time a homosexual was merely someone who attended a unisex school? The religious texts have been re-written several times over so that the texts can fit within whoever ruled during that era's beliefs. While I am discrediting Religion here (or at least attempting to) I do not mean to say that science is any better. The only Truth that is absolute, is that we don't know any Truth. I have my personal theories (read: not proven, but speculation) on what I think is true, but ultimately, nobody knows.
On to the subject, the Islamic texts clearly state that it is not a sin to lie to an infidel, so for that reason alone, I choose to feel it as one of my least favorite religions. That one line essentially says 'it's perfectly fine to hate everyone who isn't the same as you'. While I don't hate any one person who is islamic, nor do i hate people for being islamic, I do not give it as much credence as i would any other.
I probably just ticked everyone here off, but these are my views.
Oh, no, I can feel a flame war coming...
Religious texts are not just written by mortal men, but guided by God. Well, all of them claim to be and only one is.
I choose to trust the Bible: written by 40 physical authors across 3 continents over a span of thousands of years, yet its story is consistent.
It has been proven to be historically accurate, and some parts even proven by science. It referred to the Earth as a sphere at the time everyone thought the Earth to be flat. The main point of Christianity is forgiveness , which has been scientifically proven to be good for your health: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0104122807.htm
I think you should find some belief. I hope you choose Chistianity ( the most unique among religions, stating that nothing we can do will get us in heaven, so God provided a way for us if we accept his gift), but it would be better to believe something else instead of nothing.
Anyone who replies to this: be careful not to start a flame war. Depending on what you have to say, it may be better to send a Private Message.
Christianity is not a religion, it is a genre of religion. Christianity is any religion that believes in the lord jesus christ as the Messiah. The most true incarnation of Christianity is Catholicism. The rest are more-or-less spin-offs to accomodate the desires of men.
I am an aethiest, but I am not self-centered or egotisitcal. I love life, I treat all living things with respect. Even to the point where I will not waste even a single morself of food. (I choose not to be a vegetarian, as even though i cherish life, death is a natural and inevitable process, but when I choose to eat something that required the taking of a life, I make sure that not a single bit gets wasted, as wasting life is truly abominable) I view life as the single greatest accident in the history of the universe.
Beyond life, I love humans. I find humans simply fascinating. No other species has become so adept at survival that it sought alternative forms of pleasure to pass the time. Movies, Video Games, even Hop-Scotch. Humans are so good at survival that we don't feel the threat of death each and every day, and have time for games. We are truly remarkable creatures, and I am thankful to count myself among them. I do not like the general stupidity of the human race, but I feel that with time we will mature as a race.
I do not hate religion either, it is simply my belief that the science is closer to the truth than religion, and takes a more sensible approach than 'big sky man did it'. It has yet to reach the truth, but at least it's trying, rather than explaining everything away with mystic mumbo jumbo. While I agree with the majority of the 10 commandments, I absolutely despise some of the other messages laid out by Christianity, first and foremost being the apparent hatred of homosexuality. 2/3rds of all species have homosexual urges, so why is it suddenly a sin? According to the chatecism of the catholic church, it is because it denies new life; however, that's BS as through surgery it is now possible, and even then, adoption brings light to an otherwise dark life, that at least in my opinion is akin to bringing in a new one.
I think people are entitled to believe their religion is real and say they believe it too. I believe my religion is real.
Everyone who worships their religion believes it's real, otherwise what are they doing? I have an open mind though and listen to others' beliefs.
Sabresite: Sorry I deleted your signature pic on accident,.
1. Maybe it would've helped had you kept some of your post to yourself then... If you felt a flame war coming, please try to avoid it, rather than leave your gasoline cans lying in the area...
2. That's a purely Christian point of view. Someone who practices Hinduism would feel that the Bible was written by mortal men.
3. There has also been major changes to it in that time and a splintering of the religion into parts like Catholism, Protestantism, Angelicism, and other types of Christianity. Each of those have their own version of the Bible. Do you expect me to believe that ALL of them were guided by the Christian god or are you going to trample further onto the beliefs of others?
4.
5. What does that have to do with forgiveness or how Christianity is scientifically accurate?
6. I'm fine without belief, thank you very much; I'm at peace as I am.
7. Many, many, many, many, many religions are more unique than Christianity--have you forgotten how Christianity is based on Judaism and how Islam is based on Christianity? There are a tremendous number of similarities between those three religions. Shinto is closer to being the most unique religion, as it was isolated to a very unique and isolated part of the world for at least a thousand years.
8. That is quite subjective as Sabeta, I, and every other aethiest will tell you.
9. If this starts a flame war, you have yourself to blame. You felt that a flame war would come as you were writing your post (see #1) yet you continued to write it as you have it now anyways. Notice what I said above:
You're trying to force others into whatever version of Christianity that you practice. Stop it before you really offend someone.
Last edited by YuzuruHitokiri; Dec 1st, 2011 at 04:47 PM. Reason: Added the post number of where I posted my quote...
"Anything too stupid to be said is sung."
Voltaire
"If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door."
Paul Beatty
"We live in a Newtonian world of Einsteinian physics ruled by Frankenstein logic."
David Russell
Quite frankly I find a large part of society to be mindless robots. What's worse that one of the biggest culprits of this crime is supposedly supposed to endorse individuality( *cough* America *cough* ). With that in mind, a large portion of the people who pass judgement on the Muslim/Islam religion don't know half the crap they spew out of their insolent mouths. I am a Christian ( no specific sub-group-- I just read the Bible and try to understand it. I do however, attend a Baptist church ), and proud of it. However, I'm not about to be so ignorant as to trash other religions. For example, I was having dinner with my mom and I quoted Buddha, ( Forgive my paraphrasing, I do it with my own religion too-- I mean no disrespect ) "Do not accept anything as truth until it agrees with your own beliefs and knowledge.". My mom blew up and started thinking I was worshiping the Buddha. Quit frankly, she doesn't realize the Buddha isn't really a god, and he even asked that his followers ( when he was branching from Hinduism ) to not worship him. Essentially: "Don't ask me about the gods, I don't know about them. I do understand people, though." I think a large part of what just happened between my mom and Buddhism can apply largely to what most people think about Muslim followers. The fact of the matter is that they are largely ignorant. For example, I saw somebody post about a woman concerned about her kid playing with dinosaurs. That's ridiculous, and ignorant of her. Dinosaurs probably did exist. My guess is that they probably existed before the flood, but that's irrelevant, and I don't know that. Regardless, even in the Christian religion, the Bible states that God created all creatures. So for her to call them blasphemous is silly( or whatever adjective she used ).
-- But with all that said, my point:
Do the opinions of ignorant people really matter? If they're that important, prove them wrong. Otherwise, live your days knowing there's not a whole lot you really can do to change their opinions and that they are wrong. If Fred thinks George is dumb, but George is building a < insert amazing machine here >, what does it matter to George that Fred thinks he's dumb?
</rant>
Maybe this was a tad off the topic's point, but I found it relevant.
The roof's on fire, but it keeps out the rain.
So clench your fists, and enjoy the pain.
Thank you, .Mini for this wonderful image.
Wow, now where ever have I heard that before:
Oh god! He's going to believe in evolution! The horror!!Another place where these sort of ignorant debate responses pop up is from people like these...
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*cough* *Looks up and sees my last post...* *cough*
*Awaits proof that I'm actually the one who's wrong...*
*Thinks that that 'proof' is on its way, as I have argued against his faith...*
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I thought it was on topic--you related your post to how you see people reacting to other religions quite frequently... It was, as I believe, spurred on by what you read above...
"Anything too stupid to be said is sung."
Voltaire
"If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door."
Paul Beatty
"We live in a Newtonian world of Einsteinian physics ruled by Frankenstein logic."
David Russell
1. There's already oil here. I meent this as a caution to those with matches (everyone) to try to remain as emotionless as possible, and try to refrain from sarcasm (let's see if I can) as text cannot accurrately convey emotion and is often misinterpreted.1. Maybe it would've helped had you kept some of your post to yourself then... If you felt a flame war coming, please try to avoid it, rather than leave your gasoline cans lying in the area...
2. That's a purely Christian point of view. Someone who practices Hinduism would feel that the Bible was written by mortal men.
3. There has also been major changes to it in that time and a splintering of the religion into parts like Catholism, Protestantism, Angelicism, and other types of Christianity. Each of those have their own version of the Bible. Do you expect me to believe that ALL of them were guided by the Christian god or are you going to trample further onto the beliefs of others?
4.
5. What does that have to do with forgiveness or how Christianity is scientifically accurate?
6. I'm fine without belief, thank you very much; I'm at peace as I am.
7. Many, many, many, many, many religions are more unique than Christianity--have you forgotten how Christianity is based on Judaism and how Islam is based on Christianity? There are a tremendous number of similarities between those three religions. Shinto is closer to being the most unique religion, as it was isolated to a very unique and isolated part of the world for at least a thousand years.
8. That is quite subjective as Sabeta, I, and every other aethiest will tell you.
9. If this starts a flame war, you have yourself to blame. You felt that a flame war would come as you were writing your post (see #1) yet you continued to write it as you have it now anyways. Notice what I said above:
You're trying to force others into whatever version of Christianity that you practice. Stop it before you really offend someone.
2. Perhaps I should have said most.
3. There are many books (as in the books within the Bible, not actual Bibles) that claim to be guided by God. Only some of them are true and the others are not. The disagreement is on which ones are true.
The main difference between Catholism and Protistantism is that the Catholics must accept the Pope's word, even above the Bible, whereas Protistants believe in the Bible above men.
4. Interesting. I just learned that the Bible is used by Archeologists for historic data (even though they don't necessarily believe in God)
http://www.grace-n-truth.com/thebible.html
http://agards-bible-timeline.com/q9_...oof_bible.html
http://www.icr.org/bible-history/
http://biblicalarcheology.net/?p=82
5. Forgiveness is the act of letting go of a grudge, and a grudge is bad for your health. The article I linked to was my citation of a point of Christianity.
6. Good. Hopefully your peace will last when you or someone near you is dying. [This isn't sarcasm, by the way.]
7. I didn't say that Christianity was just plain unique. I said that Christianity is unique in that all others require that you do something to get into heaven or the equivilant in that religion, where in Christianity, God gave us a gift of life, and in order to go to heaven, we have to accept it, because there is no other way in heaven.
8. Which parts? My post was intended to give objective information so that people will be informed about Christianity, so if they reject it, they won't do so in ignorance.
9. Yes. I have myself to blame, along with everyone else who took part in it. If I bring loads of oil to a match factory, then I'm just as guilty as the one who lights a match. My statement was a simply a caution to everyone who has a match.
I really hope the super moderators/admins are watching in case this gets out of hand. I've seen something like this at another site, and I (a global moderator) had to close it. That didn't even work, as the other global moderators replied.
4) The bible does in fact contain quite a large amount of factual historical data. Jesus was a real person, who did real things, but beyond that there is quite a lot of speculation. Many of the events that happened actually did happen, and we even have evidence to support that some of the acclaimed miracles are legitamate; however, the main reason that I choose to take the path of science, is for the simple fact that science attempts to prove its case. A christian who sees something unexplainable will be apt explain it away by saying "God did it". While a scientist will say "Why did that happen." and perhaps he'll try to learn why. With religion there's no pursuit of knowledge, there's just explaining everything away with a magic man in the sky. Science at least makes the effort to explain things, and is willing to accept when it's found wrong. (ie: Big Bang theory is declining, as is Einstein's Theory of Relativity)
I do not hate the morals that Religion intends to instill. Forgiveness, peacefulness, and love of humanity are great things to teach people, but to shun learning in favor of some ultimate divine creator only serves to weaken Humans as a race. Remember, according to the bible, God created Human's stupid, and wanted to keep it that way, but Eve ate from the tree of knowledge and became intelligent. God created Humans to be stupid, and the devil tricked us into being intelligent.
5) Learning forgiveness can be achieved by anyone, you don't have to be a Christian to learn that. In fact, you would probably be better off without. Religion offers a so called paradise in reward for good behavior. Your forgiveness may not actually be sincere if all you care about is getting into heaven. I'm not saying this applies to everyone, but that it's entirely possible that some individuals act this way. The point is Christianity isn't automatically going to make you healthier through forgiveness, as forgiveness and tolerance can be learned by anyone.
6) Death is a cruel, unfortunate, and unavoidable part of our lives. All things must eventually come to an end. I believe you spoke with the message "How can you keep your peace, when you're about to die and go to hell/void" It's quite simple, I have accepted Death as a part of the natural order of things. I don't want to die, but neither will I be suddenly trying to find God in a last ditch effort of salvation should I find myself in a situation where I may die.
7) Almost all religions require belief that their God gave you life and that you must believe and follow that God's 'rules' in order to get into 'heaven'. The only notable exceptions I can think of are polythiesistic religions, which are far less common than Monothiesm.
Here's a couple of interesting points though. Did you know that the Poetic Edda and the Elder Edda (Nordic bible equivlents) which both predate the bible by several thousands of years contain many of the SAME STORIES found in the bible? Heaven, hell, Adam and Eve, the entire concept of Hangings, and the Endtimes were all pioneered by the Norse. In fact, the Cross is a Nordic Symbol as well, used to represent the world tree Yggdrasil.
Lastly is a short quote, the author of whom I have forgotton.
If God is willing to smite Evil, but not able,
Then he is not Omnipotent
If God is able to smite Evil, but not willing,
Then he is Malevolent
If God is both able and willing to smite Evil,
Then whence from does Evil come?
and if God is neither able nor willing to smite Evil,
why call him God?
I've yet to get a reasonable response to this quote.
My final point, is on what the Bible claims heaven is. Essentially, it is a place where you forget your family, you forget your friends, you lose everything that you had ever loved, and instead you know only God, you love only God, and you think only God, and reach an absolute Euphoria for being allowed to exist in his splendor. Call me crazy, but that doesn't exactly sound enticing.
Anyone who cares about individuality in the least, would hate this concept. You are stripped of everything you are for the sake of 'eternal happiness'
4. The Bible says what happened: God created the heavens and the earth.
Science says how something happened, whithout knowing what: Nothingness exploded and there was something.
They seem to compliment each other; however, you must know what happened in order to know how it happened.
God created us intelligent, and without a sin nature. Without that we didn't know evil. When Eve ate the fruit, she sinned, and then learned evil.
5. Heaven is only for the righteous - those who have never sinned. And everyone has sinned (besides Jesus). Therefore no one can enter heaven. God/Jesus didn't like this, so he gave us his righteousness so we could enter heaven. He forgave our sins so we could live (because the punishment for any sin is death), and commands us to forgive others in the same way.
6. What do you think happens to your soul after death? Does it go somewhere? Or does it simply blink out of existance, without another thought. Ever. What if hell is real and you are subject to eternal torment? You don't know. So what do you think when you are dying a slow, painful death? Do you have any solice? Do you fear death? Or are you apathetic at your lack of knowledge?
7. I'm not going to talk about polytheistic religions unless anyone here believes in more than one god. The current debate is whether God exists. The only God.
If multiple sources say the same thing about Adam and Eve (Judism, Christianity, Islam, and the nordic bible equivilants you mentioned), then it has a greater chance of being true, doesn't it?
As for your quote, od is able to smite evil, and will, but wants people to choose to turn to him. He wants a relationship with us, his creations. If he removed evil or even freewill, then it would be forced love. And forced love is rape. My God doesn't want to rape his creations......
The alternative to worshipping your creator in a world full of spiritual joy is what? Death. Not only that, but eternal torment and separation from everyone. Compared to heaven, earth itself is hell, because heaven is that great. Now tell me, would you really take hell instead of heaven?
i have never belived in judging a person not just by what group they are in or race or whatever but what they have done. Sometimes some people are just weird and you dont know what they are like and theyre backround.Most of the people who give islams a bad rap are just crazy people that HAPPEN to be islam nuff said.
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