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Judaism

0 (0%)

Christianity

17 (23.3%)

Islam

1 (1.4%)

Hinduism

0 (0%)

Taoism

0 (0%)

Buddhism

0 (0%)

Scientology

2 (2.7%)

Other (please tell)

7 (9.6%)

Athiest

35 (47.9%)

Undecided

1 (1.4%)

Agnostic

10 (13.7%)

Total Members Voted: 70

[Rusty Shackleford]

I never really understood pacifism because animals kill and some animals like orcas and dolphins even kill for fun.

Violence is really sort of uncommon, even horrible globe-spanning wars with extremely efficient weapons still only kill a tiny minority out of the total, and dare I say, humans are a renewable resource. So its a sad but it's an inevitable part of life. Every living thing exists at the expense of something else. Life is selfish like that out of necessity.

[Egan_BW]

The greater capacity for communication granted to us by language can afford us the luxury of not killing each other, theoretically.

[Rusty Shackleford]

The greater capacity for communication granted to us by language can afford us the luxury of not killing each other, theoretically.

I really think launguage is needed to coordinate and make possible a deliberate genocide or nuclear war as well.

Honestly bonabos and wolves and other social animals lack launguage and mostly avoid lethal violrence between members.

[Egan_BW]

But peace is much more useful than genocide.
Humanity as a whole organism gains nothing from fighting itself, this only moves resources around that could be traded willingly. We don't eat each other to survive.

[Rusty Shackleford]

But peace is much more useful than genocide.
Humanity as a whole organism gains nothing from fighting itself, this only moves resources around that could be traded willingly. We don't eat each other to survive.

Struggle of any type is a fountainhead of innovation though. Cause people don't want to die, they devise very convoluted and clever solutions to avoid it anyway they can. This is a thoroughly explored concept


Otherwise you're right, wars and conflict and petty violence is a incalculable drain of resources. Problem is its unavoidable, since living things must compete to survive and humans are emotionally driven creatures, tjere will always be disagreements and sometimes these are only settled by violence.

[TempAcc]

Personally I'm against collectivist views of humanity as a single organism of some kind, its a very artificial and lazy way of putting a shitton of incredibly varied individuals under a single umbrella. Plus, its a view that also tends to assume conflict doesnt (or shouldnt) happen at an individual level, something anyone with meager life experience and self awareness can prove wrong.

[wierd]

Personally, I prefer equilibrium.

Every person has an ideal equilibrium between the needs of the self, and the needs for others.   That ideal is unique to them, and it varies (a lot) from person to person.

I tend to be more schizoid* than most, but others have very prominent social needs-- to have those needs met, they need to have other people around to be social with. Conversely, all people need alone time; something the modern world seems to be having difficulty comprehending lately.

Equilibrium is something that is very prominent in the natural universe, as it governs everything from gravitationally bound objects, to plant and animal populations, to chemical reactions and chemical product cycles of nature--- to basically everything.  It is commonly misnamed as "balance", but that implies that there is a universal ideal.  This is incorrect.. Each person is different, and has a different ideal equilibrium.

*It means that I dont really have much of a need for direct social interaction with other people, and can handle, and even prefer, long, uninterrupted periods of complete isolation

[scriver]

I grew up nondenom Protestant

I too grew up a nondemon Protestant. How delightful to meet a fellow nondemon here. How say you we get together later and commit specifically nondemon acts together?

[wierd]

Sorry. I become a dreaded apostate agnostic. No undefined nondenom rituals here.

[Imic]

I bloody hate the whole blasphemy thing. It's gotten us too much attention, and made us a laughing stock.

[TheDarkStar]

I bloody hate the whole blasphemy thing. It's gotten us too much attention, and made us a laughing stock.

Life is hard for demon Protestants.

[TD1]

I was brought up a Protestant in an Anglican-style church. First I've heard of blasphemy - the prevailing opinion was (and presumably still is) that Catholics were the blasphemous ones, worshipping Saints and God's human mum, pretending to drink His blood and so on.

[Rolan7]

I bloody hate the whole blasphemy thing. It's gotten us too much attention, and made us a laughing stock.

To be fair, as the article points out, the anti-blasphemy law was intended to safeguard religious diversity.
It's still clearly abusable and an affront to free speech, but the intentions seem good.  And it wasn't a matter of Christianity being forced into law- oddly the opposite.

I assume it somewhat falls on one side of the Catholic/Protestant divide in Ireland, but I don't know which.

[TD1]

There is no Protestant/Catholic divide in Ireland. Or, more specifically, the Republic of Ireland in which the law exists.

It was explained to me that the Protestants were all passive-aggressively expelled from the South, though I don't know the truth of that. Regardless, less than five percent of people in the Republic are Protestant.

Edit: A quick skim of wikipedia reveals that hearsay is, on this occasion, correct. Passive aggressiveness it was, though other factors as well.

[Rusty Shackleford]

I was brought up basically atheist, but became interested in religion in my early 20's then pretty quickly became atheist again. l reasoned in my religious phase that Christianity was the best bet, read the Bible, looked at denominations and agreed most with Eastern Orthodox since its stayed closest to early Christian doctrine. An important caveat to that doctrine is the idea of Annihilationism vs the weird western concepts of Hell being like a scary cave and Satan pokes you with a pitchfork while you are on fire forever. The latter doesn't make sense and isn't even in the Bible as such. That all came out of whats essentially fanfiction like Catholic doctrine and literature like Dantes Inferno.

I can't sincerely believe any of it though so I settled into being a regular ass atheist of the non militant variety. The Bible and its associated canon and lore are interesting topics though. Dare I say I like Jesus and Satan equally as characters in the Bible. They're both my favorite.