[Spoon Poetic]

No. I believe in YHWH, and the Salvation plan, and many other Christian beliefs... Just... A lot of my beliefs are different, because I have studied and interpreted the Bible to mean different things than the Church ever did. I study the Bible itself from its original Greek and Hebrew, I study other religious texts that may or may not be "Christian" (anything from the Apocrypha to the texts from Nag Hammadi to the Koran to ... anything I can get my hands on), and I study history - of the Church, of religions, etc. So I've been able to learn what are Church/man-created beliefs and rituals such as paying money to be forgiven sins, Communion, candle ceremonies, etc; also to put together what I believe is truth.

[Sailor Abbey]

Everything that 'religion' is distressed by - homosexuality, drugs etc - comes down in the end to ... is it hurting anyone?

Wow this is really confusing. I wish you guys would specify which religion you’re talking about. Not all religions are like this. Not all religions are strict monotheist.

[barend]

yeah, but even religions that have a wide and varied pantheon still expect you to pick and settle on one for complete devotion.

[Despondent]

One thing that was left out of the bible that I wish it mentioned was the Dinosaurs.

The Leviathan which he made for the sport of it?

Left out the part about the chicken and the egg, too.

[Slade]

I just realized that in the post I made in the wee hours of the morning, my original intent was lost. I was attempting to point out that belief is subjective.

For the record, I do think that there is some sort of higher power, be it a god, goddess (Eris or otherwise), Karma, or a bit of all of that, but my ideas aren't nearly formed enough about the metaphysics of the universe to properly explain what I think is going on (i.e. said power's scope, intents, consciousness status, etc.). And even then, my ideas are based on my own subjective experiences and studies/"studies" and wouldn't make sense to anyone else anyway.

There is still some magic in this running down old world I know that for certain, though.

[barend]

There is still some magic in this running down old world I know that for certain, though.

let me guess...

the power of lurve!

[Slade]

Well, it's certainly not in my use of punctuation in that post.

[barend]

I only read the first few words and peiied together, what i figured, you were trying to say.

[civilian_number_two]

Still, since I never said, as you nicely put it that "all people who hold religious beliefs are uniformly idiotic without a single reasonable thought from dawn to dusk", I don't want people think that these were my words. May I remind you what I said in the first place "religions will survive because pople do not like to think for themselves" Religions, meaning organised religions like Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Organised religion with dogmas and truths provide people with very convenient tenets which provide ready answers for situations in life, without the need of thinking.

Do you really think that any of those rabid Muslims who burnt Danish embassy ever stopped to think that perhaps it is not quite like the mullas tell them? I bet most of them did not even see the cartoons, but they were ready with violence when someone told them that their sacred faith is in danger fom some cartoonist.

I see your point, but I actually think that what you've proven is that "violence exists because people don't like to think for themselves." Those folks doing the burning may just as well have done it to protest the outcome of a football match. We had a smallscale riot accompanied by looting and some petty violence here about 10 years ago over the outcome af the Stanley Cup final. I don't see any difference between violence in favour of religion and joining a lynch mob because you overheard that some dirty nigger done touched a white girl, or so they say.

I think I know clever people who can think for themselves, who are still religious. They don't burn embassies and I wouldn't say they are sheep. I think the origin of religion was that people were trying to make sense of the world and unexplained phenomena. I don't think it was power players trying to control the masses. We may disagree on that. In any case, it's moved beyond that now, since most of the investigating is done by scientists, while religion has moved into the areas of personal growth and, yes, on the downside, naysaying scientific progress and inciting people to riot. But I wouldn't put it all on Religion anyway. That Danish newspaper might as well have had a contest for the best Holocaust cartoon. They did it specifically to piss off the Muslim world, to show them that they didn't care what Muslims thought about not publishing images of Mohammed. Cartoons made the insult even worse. It becomes a personal, racial insult, like if an English paper devoted an entire issue to ridiculing the Irish and calling the Virgin Mary a whore. Something would get nailbombed, I can tell you that.

Too bad for the embassy that was burned, but too bad too that the Danish government didn't make some effort to apologise for the actions of the press. Like even to say "we don't agree with that, but they're free to do as they please." Even that would have been something, though less than they'd have done if other religi0ons had been offended. I suspect that had the contest been Holocaust cartoons, like I suggested, that paper would not be in business today.

[Spoon Poetic]

You know what else? The same artist that drew those cartoons had, not too long ago, drawn some cartoons that were playfully mocking the Crucifixion. The same newspaper that printed the anti-Islam cartoons wouldn't publish the ones mocking Christianity because "they were too offensive, they didn't want to offend their readers, blah blah."

[Jordan]

The greatest battles, the greatest massacres, the longest wars have never had anything to do with religion. Religion is just a tool. You can build something with it or you can use it as a weapon.

Most horrors in this world are created by men who try to reach high levels of power and hopefully be remembered as a Juilius Caesar. I'm sure they stay up all night thinking about how they'll stamp their foot print in history.

I don't think religious people are sheep nor are they irrational. I think they're just uncertain of things. Science does not explain everything and not all people are fulfilled by knowing Pi*r^2.

This post has been edited by Jordan: 02 March 2006 - 04:01 AM

[barend]

Most horrors in this world are created by men who try to reach high levels of power and hopefully be remembered as a Juilius Caesar. I'm sure they stay up all night thinking about how they'll stamp their foot print in history.

and some just drop out of high school, join the army, gain two ranks above private and scratch their name in the walls of babylon...




...yes, i'm still bitter about that.

[Slade]

Nothing tops ancient graffiti, though. "Visit Octavia for a good time," written on the walls of a Roman ruin in Latin is classic. I think Otal had a link to a site that lists that stuff, though I'm not sure who it was...

[barend]

'cleopatra does the nasty'

[Despondent]

"Oedipus was a Mother F...."