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captainzib wrote:I don't think aircooled was calling SVRex a liar, just stating that he was probably not in the majority.
If I had to guess, I would say most people subscribe to whatever religion they were systematically brainwashed into from a young age.
He was not Christian. He has since become Christian. I'd like to hear him explain for himself what prompted that and why.
(raises deflector shields)
If I was going to choose a religion, then based on my (admittedly slim) knowledge of it, I think I'd probably go Buddhist. Buddha is acknowledged as a human, it doesn't appear he tried to set himself up as a deity. I don't recall Buddhism advocating the snuffing of non believers and it also teaches its followers to respect the earth and each other.
(holds deflector shields at full power)
As an Atheist married to the daugther of a catholic deacon(figure that out).. I can say that I have seen religions do much good. My FIL routinely is called in the middle of the night to provide comfort to the sick or dying. And he's there for them.
I really believe my wife gets more from the church as a community than as some great hole in her soul filler. I'm happy to go to church with her, and I said it's OK for her to raise the kids Catholic as long as I get my piece to say to them. I also made her promise that she would be OK with the fact that our children could become buddhists or whatever they want in the future.
Fun times ahead. HA! fixed typo
Jensenman wrote:(raises deflector shields)
If I was going to choose a religion, then based on my (admittedly slim) knowledge of it, I think I'd probably go Buddhist. Buddha is acknowledged as a human, it doesn't appear he tried to set himself up as a deity. I don't recall Buddhism advocating the snuffing of non believers and it also teaches its followers to respect the earth and each other.
(holds deflector shields at full power)
+1... I agree.
MitchellC wrote:thatsnowinnebago wrote:MitchellC wrote:Okay, something I just thought of (and I'm sure I'm not the first):
What came first, the chicken or the egg? -The egg. Of the dinosaur.
False. It was the egg of the crazy ancient fish
If we're going further back, might as well start with the single-celled organism.
Further than that, might as well start with a DNA-like structure, possibly RNA. Did life start out as an acid? Probably.
J-man. I'm actually very much with you there. However, if you go to a large Buddhist temple, you'll see a whole lot of absurd ritual as the focus of what most people are doing (lighting incense and praying to a specific Bodhisattva). Just like any other religion.
One of my favorite quotes from the Buddha is one where he likens himself and his teachings to a finger pointing at the moon. He admonishes people to not become so focused on the finger that they miss the moon entirely.
Arguably, Jesus of Nazareth was a very similar individual. I'm not convinced that he was out there telling everyone that he was the immaculate son of God, and that they should all follow him. I suspect that most of those claims, and the miracles he supposedly performed, were attributed to him later on.
Jesus was an interesting guy. He pissed off religious leaders because he questioned their authority and what they had to say. He also did not expect people to take what he said and believe it at face value. He understood that he had to convince people with logic, examples, and parables and then let them judge the value of his words themselves.
Clay wrote:Looks like I hit a nerve in this tolerant discussion. The "intolerant" comment was referring to religious discussions, not anyone's opinion. I'm sure "religious" folks have to tolerate being referred to as intolerant quite a bit more than any atheist. I guess some folks do not tolerate being referred to as intolerant. ;-)
Backpedal much?
You described us (and I'm lumping all of us atheists together here) as - directly quoted - "certainly a very intolerant group on this board when it comes to religious discussions".
Please do explain how this was sensitivity on our part and not simply a fairly direct insult on your part.
ignorant wrote: I really believe my wife gets more from the church as a community than as some great hole in her being filler.
That typo SAVED YOUR LIFE.
You'd think he'd be able to make her more speak out more religiously by filling that hole for her himself.
Like all religions, Buddhism is not immune to those who would milk it for money, and what better way than to wrap it in layers of mysticism?
I just like the basic tenets and that Buddha never tried to set himself up as a deity but rather as a teacher. Of course, some of us cussed humans have just gotta twist and warp things like that for our own selfish purposes. 
I think that all religions are based in an inability to explain the natural world way back when. Take lightning; how would someone in, say, the 600's BC explain such a thing? It strongly resembles magic if you don't know the mechanics of it. So since you can't explain it, now it becomes proof of deities playing dice with the universe and toying with frail humans for their amusement. So the people of the times cobbled up all kinds of stories to assauge their fears and it snowballed from there. That means all religions are designed and written down by humans.
The human written Christian Bible teaches that Jesus is the Son of God which makes him a direct line to the Almighty so to speak and past Jesus there is God who is omniptent and not to be questioned.
The human written Koran teaches that the Prophet Muhammed is not to be depicted and that there is Allah above Muhammed which sorta says the same thing.
I have a problem with religions which say 'past this point you may not ask, you must accept this as truth or be branded a heretic'. Sounds to me like someone saying 'do not question lest ye learn the truth and screw up the gravy train with biscuit wheels'.
On top of that, the human written holy books for these religions say it's okay to kill unbelievers or infidels (or at least they have been interpreted this way over the centuries). Heck, one of the Popes even said killing Muslims (non believers) was a sure route to heaven, used the Bible to back him up and touched off the Crusades. We all know how the Muslim fanatics have interpreted the Koran recently.
And I am supposed to believe in and follow such teachings? No, thank you. I'll pass.
Salanis wrote:You'd think he'd be able to make her more speak out more religiously by filling that hole for her himself.
I think her pet name for him is 'Skeeter'. 
Jensenman wrote:I think that all religions are based in an inability to explain the natural world way back when. Take lightning; how would someone in, say, the 600's BC explain such a thing? It strongly resembles magic if you don't know the mechanics of it. So since you can't explain it, now it becomes proof of deities playing dice with the universe and toying with frail humans for their amusement. So the people of the times cobbled up all kinds of stories to assauge their fears and it snowballed from there. That means all religions are designed and written down by humans.
Arthur C. Clarke said that any technology sufficiently advanced would look like magic.
Jensenman wrote:I have a problem with religions which say 'past this point you may not ask, you must accept this as truth or be branded a heretic'. Sounds to me like someone saying 'do not question lest ye learn the truth and screw up the gravy train with biscuit wheels'.
And that right there is what made me an atheist:
Adam and Eve were thrown out of the Garden for daring to eat the Fruit of Knowledge from the Tree of Life.
How much more obvious can it be?
Bull, they were tossed for streaming porn from the allmightys secured server...
I jest.
Hehehe... every time I think of Adam and Eve getting kicked out, I am reminded of the intro in "Good Omens" by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchet. The conversation between Aziraphale and Crawley is hilarious!
"Wouldn't it be funny if you did the Right thing, and I did the Wrong thing?"
"Not really. A demon can get in a lot of trouble for doing the Right thing."
Jensenman wrote: I think that all religions are based in an inability to explain the natural world way back when.
I think it's not just way back when, but whenever.
At the limits of knowledge lies faith. Even in the hard sciences like math and physics, at the outer limits of what we know and can test the study becomes almost purely philosophical. As humans, we crave order and we demand answers, and religion provides a lot of those answers for folks. We, as a species, also crave meaning and relevance, and religion provides this for the folks who need to know that we're something more than bags of meat on a ball of rock.
As to which one is "right" is still anyone's guess. Hopefully they're all right on some level. But hopefully they're right on the "you should help your neighbor and respect the planet and not be a d-bag" level and not on the "gay people shouldn't get married and you're going to burn in hell for all eternity for jerking off" level.
jg
JG Pasterjak wrote:As to which one is "right" is still anyone's guess. Hopefully they're all right on some level. But hopefully they're right on the "you should help your neighbor and respect the planet and not be a d-bag" level and not on the "gay people shouldn't get married and you're going to burn in hell for all eternity for jerking off" level.
God doesn't burn you in hell for jerking off. Supposedly he strikes you blind for jerking off. If you read the story, that's not what happens.
There was a tradition that, if your brother died without leaving a child, you were supposed to sleep with his wife and get her pregnant so that she could have a child to carry on your brother's name. Apparently there was a guy who was uneasy with this, and didn't complete the act to fruition. So, God struck him blind.
The real moral is: when banging your dead brother's widow, don't pull out, or God will strike you blind.
Maybe the brother's wife made him wish he was struck blind. 
jg brings up a good point about pushing the edges of what we know becoming philosophical. That's because as we push those limits we head into the realm of the unknown and we are right back to the same point as our ancestors cowering in fear as lightning crashes. It takes a lot of courage to face the completely unknown and some people will do their best to make it the 'known' at the cost of learning the real truth.
Like the Big Bang theory; when first proposed, almost everybody in the scientific community pooh poohed it and much support was thrown to the 'steady state' explanation, because it was much simpler. Over the years, more and more evidence supported the Big Bang theory and it's much more accepted now.
Of course, it brings its own problems: what was there before the Big Bang? 
We don't know and some people are going to dream up all kinds of stuff to try to explain it without any real proof because to them a half baked theory is better than admitting they just don't know.
Jensenman wrote:Maybe the brother's wife made him wish he was struck blind.
Maybe God didn't blind him with religion. Maybe she blinded him... with Science!
Before the big bang there was only the Invisible Pink Unicorn. Followers of the IPU recently captured an image of the IPU in a grassy field as it frolicked shown below.
Recently some of the follows of the IPU called into question how the IPU could both be invisible and pink at the same time. They were then burned at the stake for being heretics.
"Science" is "Satan", spelled backwards:
Jensenman wrote: ...I think that all religions are based in an inability to explain the natural world way back when. Take lightning; how would someone in, say, the 600's BC explain such a thing? It strongly resembles magic if you don't know the mechanics of it....
I was thinking a similar thing when someone was describing the effects of an eathquake on the New Madrid fault (northwest corner of Tennessee).
The description involved so much movement that underground mud and sand shot out of the ground like geysers, a lake that disappeared into the earth and the whole town of New Madrid dropped something like 20ft. I think they estimated it at a 10 on the RS, it was so big it was felt as a mag 4 in New York city! After witnessing something like that you can imagine the gods that you would create!
This event happened in the 1811 so you can imagine some of the natural phenomenon that have happened in the last few thousand years.
I respect athiests and their (wrong:) ) beliefs. Looking at some of the posts above, it's a shame some of you (not all) don't return that respect.
But I'll refrain from the use of the word "intolerant." sigh.
Nathan
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An aside: one poster mentioned he thought C.S. Lewis was a "hack". I'm curious to here more, as I've read some of his works, and was actually quite impressed. That said, I'd love to hear what others think.
Nathan
