Netami's Religion Thread

[Knight]

humans believe in god, the act of believing in god creates god

KILL THE WISE ONE!

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

All living things die, people are forgotten, and and the wages of all sin is death.

The wages of sin is death, but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the wicked get to go home early on fridays...

[crimson_wolf]

My mind is open and things have tried to walk in only to be devoured by my mind. If something enters when i do not will it i will use extent of my being to force regret unto it's being. I will always listen but there is nothing in my mind and memory for them to see.

[bill]

What?

[crimson_wolf]

Alot of people talk to me about thier problems and i will listen but if they try to butt into my buisness they pay for it.

[bill]

[superluser]

When creationists get all riled up over theory of evolution, pointing to the "made in my image" part of the bible, I just ask them how they know God isn't a monkey.

It doesn't usually calm them.

Heh.  That reminds me of Red Meat.  The priest asks God if we were really created in His image, and He says, ``Yes, but not how you think.  Picture a 20-billion-ton amphibious rodent...''

(Another good Red Meat about Creationism)

[Knight]

OMG superluser I used to love this comic back in the 18-20 year old days when I was working at Sega during the dreamcast era.  I had completely, totally, forgotten about it.

I FREAKING LOVE U

[superluser]

I was working at Sega during the dreamcast era.

I LOVE YOU, MAN.

[Knight]

Why?  I just read comics all day. 

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I guess you didn't go through my list, then. Red Meat is on there...

[Knight]

Didn't remember that's what it was called.  I associated it mostly with Milkman Dan.  :p

[Knight]

This has to be my favorite:

[Brunhidden]

agnostic- the belief that 'god is unknowable'. by definition any divine being and any plans or actions of such are so complex and profound that a human brain would both implode and explode simultaneously should they be informed. agnostic does not mean you disbelieve in god, merely that people who think they know what any given divine being wants or means should shove it.

why is it that only the truly stupid seem to believe that ONLY their views and opinions are valid? even among the Christians, so commonly globbed together in one pile, you have so many different little interpretations. for example one specific sect does not believe in medicine for it was not mentioned in the bible, another sect does not believe in twins claiming god would never split one person into two. yet these are extreme cases, the vast majority of Christians you have no idea they ARE Christians, they're just generic people going about their daily business and never once in thiner lives scream moronic phrases in protest or picket a soldiers funeral.

There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy

[Knight]

I see unfortunately that you are familiar with Fred Phelps.

[Ryudo Lee]

why is it that only the truly stupid seem to believe that ONLY their views and opinions are valid? even among the Christians, so commonly globbed together in one pile, you have so many different little interpretations. for example one specific sect does not believe in medicine for it was not mentioned in the bible, another sect does not believe in twins claiming god would never split one person into two. yet these are extreme cases, the vast majority of Christians you have no idea they ARE Christians, they're just generic people going about their daily business and never once in thiner lives scream moronic phrases in protest or picket a soldiers funeral.

There are people like that in just about every religion, the kind of people who go about their daily lives and not bother anyone.  I would think that they've got a healthier relationship with their respective deities than the ones who get up on soap boxes and scream out those moronic phrases.  I mean, IMHO, if you're comfortable with your god, then you'd think that you're more likely to keep your views to yourself and just be happy.  Some people just aren't comfortable until everyone around them agrees with them, and then the shouting starts when you have those who disagree.

[Caswin]

Some people just aren't comfortable until everyone around them agrees with them, and then the shouting starts when you have those who disagree.

Not necessarily.  If someone's trying to convince someone else of their beliefs, religious or otherwise, by shouting and not bothering to listen... well, I'm convinced that they have no idea what they're doing.

[Knight]

It's kind of self defeating to try to "convince" someone of a "belief" to begin with.  Something almost everyone is guilty of, though.

Religiosity has high heritability, however... and open mindedness... low.  They just need to stop wasting time on the open minded people.

[Brunhidden]

It's kind of self defeating to try to "convince" someone of a "belief" to begin with.  Something almost everyone is guilty of, though.

i find this to be the big flaw with Islam. you hold a gun to someones head and say "convert or we will shoot you", i highly doubt that any of your converts will understand the religion and will only believe it so long as someone has a gun. During the time of mohammed he had only a handful of followers, in a few months time he controlled half the known world.

on the other hand i highly favor the Aesir, and they ran screaming at people swinging an axe wildly, but to give them credit they understood their religion was a choice and never cohered anyone to convert. they did however cohere people to hand over the good stuff, which is almost a bigoted remark too because most vikings spent the vast majority of thier time farming, fishing, and making bitchin pancakes.

Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world.

[Knight]

Well, if you hold a gun to someone's head, and give them a choice, they are usually going to choose the one that (they think) involves them not getting shot, unless their resolve is stronger than their fear of death.  This brings to mind the Columbine situation.  I tell you, that had to be a brave fucker that was the first to say he or she didn't believe in God without first observing that people that said they did were getting whacked, as you might infer from such a question that the gunholder is a religious freak.  Strangely, you migh infer from such a situation that the shooters had a big problem with organized religion, instead of inferring that Doom told them to kill people; yet no one even really put much focus on this.

Anyway, thinking they are now Islamic because they made the choice of you not shooting them and identifying that as their free will to choose Islam is disregard for other people to the point of mental illness.

[Axis]

The average atheist is the same as any other religious nut-job, except they don't worship anything, don't go to Church, they've turned in their Bible for a copy of The Origin of Species, and think that Christianity and Islam are the only religions to exist, ever.(which is remarkably similar to Christians and Muslims)  The only reason we don't hear about how evil they are is that there were never enough of them in one place to justify the genocide of another group.

Most of them a nice, but the loud, annoying ones ruin it for the rest of us. 

[Darkmoon]

The average atheist is the same as any other religious nut-job, except they don't worship anything, don't go to Church, they've turned in their Bible for a copy of The Origin of Species, and think that Christianity and Islam are the only religions to exist, ever.(which is remarkably similar to Christians and Muslims)  The only reason we don't hear about how evil they are is that there were never enough of them in one place to justify the genocide of another group.

Most of them a nice, but the loud, annoying ones ruin it for the rest of us. 

Seriously, I think you need to get your facts straight on much of that, kid.

[Knight]

Yeah, reading that, 3 thoughts came into my mind.

1)  The poster is very young.
2)  The poster is inexperienced in religious diversity.
3)  The poster comes from a fundamentalist background.

What an impression you'd want to make, huh?

[Brunhidden]

let me try to remember all of the current big religons left out of that brief list....without breaking into the 'every sperm is sacred' number


there are roughly the following numbers of the following religions
- Christianity: 2.1 billion
- Islam: 1.3 billion
- Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist: 1.1 billion, but this number is largely Agnostics
- Hinduism: 900 million
- Chinese traditional religion: 394 million
- Buddhism: 376 million
- primal-indigenous: 300 million
- African Traditional & Diasporic: 100 million
- Sikhism: 23 million
- Juche: 19 million
- Spiritism: 15 million
- Judaism: 14 million
- Baha'i: 7 million
- Jainism: 4.2 million
- Shinto: 4 million
- Cao Dai: 4 million
- Zoroastrianism: 2.6 million
- Tenrikyo: 2 million
- Wicca: 1 million
- Unitarian-Universalism: 800 thousand
- Rastafarianism: 600 thousand
- Scientology: 500 thousand

the following religions are large enough to be on the list but no number of followers can be found due to them pretending to be other religions for fear of being set on fire.

- Satanisim
- Aesir
- the cult of the beast
- Greko/roman pantheon
- Egyptian pantheon
- druids


and last and probably least i have no idea where Hari Krishna fits into the list, and recently 'jedi' was made a legal religion in the UK.

Just because someone's a member of an ethnic minority doesn't mean they're not a nasty small-minded little jerk

[Axis]

The average atheist is the same as any other religious nut-job, except they don't worship anything, don't go to Church, they've turned in their Bible for a copy of The Origin of Species, and think that Christianity and Islam are the only religions to exist, ever.(which is remarkably similar to Christians and Muslims)  The only reason we don't hear about how evil they are is that there were never enough of them in one place to justify the genocide of another group.

Most of them a nice, but the loud, annoying ones ruin it for the rest of us. 

Seriously, I think you need to get your facts straight on much of that, kid.

Really?  So when I grossly generalize one group I need to check my facts, but when if I were to say that religion was a cancer on the human race and that all who put stock in it are crack-pots, I'm right?

Brunhidden da Muse:  That's funny that they included atheists into a larger group.  On top of that, note that I said "in one place".  Show me a map of the world and point to me the historical atheist belt.  Stalin was a very nice man, wasn't he?

Evil Richter:  Really, I'm not surprised at your answer from your attitude earlier in this very thread..

I got the kind of answers I expected. 

[Distracting]

Pope Urban II was also a very nice man. Starting the Crusades and such. What an incredibly good idea.


Also, you're dead wrong. The average atheist is like the average theist, only without church. It's asinine to make generalizations like that. I'd expect that many atheists were afraid of religious people for a long while. It would have been the same as going into a church full of people and saying that you hate God...only you wouldn't have law to defend you quite so much.

Anyway, your superiority is showing and should be covered up. Oh, the indecency.

[Axis]

So, what you're saying is that we can both find examples of bad people from all groups in History?  Get out.  Belief doesn't mean anything on how people act? No way, I can't believe it.    It's like you just said what I did.

[Darkmoon]

(blinks)

The idiocy is astounding...

[Distracting]

So, what you're saying is that we can both find examples of bad people from all groups in History?  Get out.  Belief doesn't mean anything on how people act? No way, I can't believe it.    It's like you just said what I did.

For all intensive purposes, I was refuting the commonly held notion that religion means instant moral perfection. Ergo, if the same notion were to be held for atheists, then that would imply that they have no morals. You having stated that the only reason they're not considered evil is because they were never in a group large enough (in one place, of course) to commit genocide. This is, to me, a prime example of that notion. Next question...

If you put an atheist and a theist next to each other in everyday life, will the atheist go around kicking puppies and punching babies while the theist gives money to the homeless? They obviously must, because it takes religion to have morals. Tell me, how many friends do you have that have been lynched by atheists? About as many as have been lynched by theists I'm betting.

The idiocy is astounding...

You mean mine?

[Netrogo]

I've always had some very strong views about religion however I was trying to avoid this thread for fear of offending someone (everyone) as I often tend to when I start going off. But it's too tempting to pass up when it's the only thread in the GD being posted in at the moment so I'll go off on my usual tangent and should I offend someone (everyone) I'll just appologize profusely and delete the post.

*cracks knuckles*

First and foremost. I think organized religion as a whole, regardless of which one it is, is the most retarded thing to EVER grace this earth. A room full of dodo birds and lemmings would have more sense then the average church. Now don't get me wrong it's not religion that I have the problem with it's ORGANIZED religion. I have no problem with people having a faith, and idea, a dream for the afterlife and origins of our species. It's when these fuckers get organized that we start having problems. Everything from the douche bags in the middle east who seem to think that their god wants them to kill all his creations for god knows what reason or another, to the bible thumping little retards over here who take it to a whole new level and litterally thump a wiccan to death with bibles.

Where the hell do these miserable pricks get off thinking that saying 'lords work' means you're allowed to do whatever the hell you want wherever you want and by any means. Honestly every single freaking person who goes to church is insane. Even if you don't take part in the same shenanigans as the previously listed, you're still adding to their numbers and giving them even more justification. As far as I'm concerned, and you can call me conceited for this, the only religion on earth that makes sense to me is Agnosticism. Not just because it's the one I follow, but because it's the ONLY one that I have yet to hear any stories of it's followers going out and inflicting some form of suffering on another living thing in it's name. That and buddism. So yeah two religions but I haven't learned much about buddism, they seem alright in my books but I found agnosticism first and stuck with it. All the other ones seem completely off the wall retarded the further into them I get. Specifically the big ones though. Christianity, Catholicism, Islam, and whatever the hell the Jehovah's follow.

Now truth be told I have a crack pot idea of my own. Keep in mind I said idea. I don't believe this is 100% true, just something I think seems plausible. Before I go on a further tirade lemme illuminate. I think creationism and evolution both happend. I think their is a god or some higher thing out there (hoping for the triple fish god) but regardless. My posturing is that the diety created all this wonderful stuff we call existance. Then sometime later decided to reach down and bless some of his playthings. In my opinion Adam and Eve were a couple of primates that 'he' blessed with a slightly more advanced learning capability, causing a branch off of evolution that over time resulted in man as we are now. I've got a bunch of other stuff involving this but like I said it's all ideas and such. The equivalent of Amber going on about story ideas, because I have NO FREAKING PROOF of it.

Which brings me back to the others. That's one of the things that really get's my goat. They all have NO FREAKING PROOF. Just a goddam book written BY MEN who CLAIM to have been guided in it's writing by some higher power. Y'know what if I drink enough you'd be surprised what higher powers will have me write. These 'saints' of the past are exactly the same as the homeless guy who stands up on the street corner and says god came to him and told him stuff. The only difference is we lock the homeless guy up and call him crazy, and these other douche bags go down in history as world changing thinkers. HELL even today, the freaking pope said he had a sitdown with god and together they freaking decided that all babies get into heaven. Oh well gee how nice, the two of them had a chat and decided babies get into heaven. HOW THE HELL DO YOU JUST PENCIL IN A FREAKING SITDOWN WITH GOD. What the hell?? Does his day planner just say '8am breakfast, 10am sanctify pool, 12pm tea and cookies with god' dammit! The worst part is people freaking believe him, JUST BECAUSE HE'S THE POPE. No other reason other then that. He's a guy, elected by popular vote, given a really big hat and control of several million people. The only difference between him and the president of the USA is the president get's a big house instead of the hat!

I haven't looked much into islam. Considering I keep hearing about it's followers blowing themselves up in the name of their version of god leads me to believe I don't WANT to know about islam. I don't want to know how you justify blowing yourself and many other people up in the name of something that, you believe does but, might not exist. Honestly, if you gave me undeniable proof that say my family and every member of it after that through out time would live happy, healthy, and well off if I blew myself up right now. If you gave me a crack team of lawyers who went over every detail in quadruplicate and found without a shadow of a doubt it was one hundred percent true and there was a plethora of hard evidence to back it up. I'd consider doing it, heck I might even wind up doing it though somewhat reluctanctly. I do like living after all.

If you told me 'Jebus said to' I'd tell you to fuck yourself faster then the human eye can blink.

*cracks knuckles again*

Anyways my major gripe still stands with these retards who feel the need to harm others in the name of yon big cheese in the sky. I don't care how bad ass and awesome your god is. You do NOT have the right to hurt others for it. Now don't get me wrong, I'm all about harming my fellow man, when they deserve it. But not for retarded reasons that have no merrit in society. Unless god drops down and stands over us all PHYSICALLY 'he' has no merrit on this plane.

I'm done for now. If I write too much it'll take too long for people to go over and disect the hell outta my post. I'll write more after everyone's griped about parts of what I said, gonna go get some soda and air for now.