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[Idiom]

Idiom if that wall of text is at me and being "oppressive and demented" then I am going to have to reserve this spot till after school.

Nope, no special response for you. You're alright.

Leafsnail just frustrated me. That was at first directed at him, then kind of drifted to a general statement. I've been ranting to atheists about this for however long I've been around here and I STILL can't get any of them to address main ideas in clarity rather than nitpick at everything else with terribly biased words that sound like they come from a nut or an angry drunk. There's really not much there he should disagree with, and he just kept responding with slightly related stuff I already partly agreed with as if it trumped something... ugh.

There's one side arguing that religion is oppressive, the other argues that atheism is aggressive.

For the record I'm saying they both are. I agree with both those statements if you add a "can be" in there. This is the problem when I try to get my idea across, people automatically fill things in with stereotypes like that, and then if they're hardcore anti-religious they assume I want people back in mud huts for the sake of bliss when really I just want them to stop being so extreme and realize that more than their comfort zone has something to it.

Both claim that the other is stupid or fanatic.

They're both horribly so. It drives me to ranting.

Screw it.

Re-Rail!

Christianity is basically a mishmash of beliefs

Ugh. It makes me sick when I see easter bunny, santa, etc garbage. But initially it was for the sake of getting people to actually convert was to make it as similar as possible to whatever they were already doing. Really, I think the modern commercialism is worse. Like money changers in the temple "JESUS SMASH! ARRRGGHHH!".

[Leafsnail]

As a note "Oppressive and demented" did not refer to anybody in particular (not all religious people, or even any of them).  It referred specifically to a god, who did do some fairly oppressive acts in his time.  Demented overstepped the line though.

I'm not so sure what you mean by "main ideas".  I would say that there are other types of people again - as you say, some people need safety wheels.  It's true.  But it would seem that other people are harmed by such things - some people seem to commit bad acts because of their religion, others seem to take authority figures in their religion a bit too seriously.  This is the main problem I see - that there are figures who are unaccountable, and who aren't always well informed.  For instance, while I'm sure the Pope means well, and just wants to help his followers, his comments on, say, contraception, probably aren't helping, and could be causing damage to people who go into this third category.

Perhaps a form of religion where supreme authority figures are minimised and questioning (especially of authority figures) is encouraged would be fine.  In some places, this seems to be so, but in others... not so much.  This is the main problem with some forms of religion, in my eyes.

[Idiom]

YES! A real reply! That just made my day!

Unaccountable and uninformed people always exist, unfortunately. I see them on all sides of the fence. They don't even have to always be so, sometimes they're just really disgruntled or angry at the time being, other times they're just a fanatic follower and nothing more. The pope doesn't always mean well either. Bastard wielded his influence as a political tool, almost defiling his own name in my opinion. When he really does mean well, yeah like with contraception, hmmm. I really don't see how any figure with any sort of influence can do anything without harming some group of people.

That's why I like religions without extreme authority figures. Christianity has always been my favorite, particularly when the more modern version branched off from Catholicism declaring that people should be left to interpret the word of God for themselves, and you can even question whatever you like. Even without an authority figure, you still get the nutcases that interpret the Bible as a reason to Jihad or whatever and kill abortion doctors. With the authority figure, you still have those nutcases but they're used like a tool. Without religion at all, you still end up with murdering nutcases. Really I think the third group is just a problem with people in general. It's kind of unavoidable.

[Leafsnail]

You still end up with murdering nutcases, but it would seem that some people are just... very impressionable.  Dangerously impressionable.  Sometimes those who commit attrocious acts aren't evil, just... gullible.  And usually with a misplaced sense of pride and loyalty.  This isn't just with religion - it happens with political causes as well.

Christianity in its modern form is better than previous and other religions.  But it seems that some people can't help but make authority figures out of it - such as the big preachers, who have access to hundreds of people.  I'm not even sure if they mean well or not, but it may be irrelevant considering the damage they can do.  Pro-life violence is the most obvious problem that can be caused here, but homophobia and anti convential medicine are, while less dramatic, more common.

[Maric]

Maric, first of all, please get on the nice bus.  I already warned like 4 people in here yesterday.

Second, he was most likely referring to Leafsnail's use of those exact words in a previous post and speaking to Leafsnail with whom he'd been having an ongoing dispute.

edit: Leafsnail's name caps

I was going to be nice  . Was going to defend myself from being "oppressive and demented" (thought he was talking to me since he quoted me and then said that right after so I was kind of like  ) by going back over my two posts in here and pulling examples to disprove that quote above.

However I was mistaken and jumped to a conclusion and in any of my posts it does not appear from my point of view that I was about to rip throats out.

Sorry if it did appear like that to anyony, sorry Idiom and sorry Toady for causing some trouble.


Anyway thought modern Christianity was still pretty bad compared to other religions 


EDIT> Also rereading that line I put reserving that spot did seem kind of aggressive. Was getting ready and hurrying to school, wasn't really thinking of what I was putting down  .

[Areyar]

Read the book "God wants you dead".
The title is mainly for shock value, the main focus of the book is about 'greater causes'
How people let themselves be controlled by them and how you can free yourself from (self)destructive imperatives that only help the Cause and not yourself or your loved ones.
Occasionally a good read, though a bit rambling at times. As forum dwellers, you should have no trouble with that style.

[RAM]

Dwarf Fortress: The only God Game that makes you believe God exists and is acutally having Fun!

If you're wondering why a benevolent God lets bad things happen, you've never played DF.

DF: The Answer to the God Paradox!

Reading a book called Farseer, and while a thinly disguised anit-religious novel (like Golden Compass) it deals with a situation where the characters (intelligent velociraptors called quintaglios) have a religious system that makes sense until someone invents the telescope, then the main character gazes upon the sun, stars, the 13 moons, the 3 or 4 currently visible planets (of 9), and the Face of God (female) and comes to the conclusion that ALL of them are spherical (creates a simple model in his ship cabin*) and decides that The Face of God isn't God, but a planet and that they live on one of the planet's 14 moons.**

The problem with this knowledge is that if the "Face of God" isn't God, then either:

"It's turtles all the way down": God created them, someone else created god, someone else created that all the way to infinity, which is absurd.

OR

If God has no creator, then there is no need for God at all (the universe may as well have created itself).  But if there is no God, then there is no Afterlife, and if there is no Afterlife, then there's no reason for people to behave properly.  Quintaglios would stop repressing their territorial instincts and they'd only join up in groups for the hunt, leading to anarchy.

God(s) is(are) necessary for civilization, but not for the universe.

*Their world has a single landmass exactly 180 degrees around from the side facing The Face of God and doesn't rotate (relative) much like our own moon does.  It's a 130 day boat trip.

**Some of the 13 visible moons travel both against the stars sometimes, indicating that they have a narrower orbit than their own.

I think that the idea that god is necessary for civilisation is more based on fear and desire than any actual investigation. The idea that people would just abandon their support mechanisms seems absurd to me, but then again, people are doing it perpetually all over the world regardless, so I do need to account for the fact that people do not make sense...

[Golgath]

Yay for necromancy!

magma fixes EVERYTHING

Except a magma flood.

"No dwarf, no problem."
"No dwarf, no problem."

[Areyar]

The problem is that the holybooks have been used as lawbooks, collating basic humanitarian and some local virtues and vices.
Now that litteracy is widespread and not limited to priests this is no longer a valid situation, nor are the laws of nomadic illiterate sheepherds applicable to our global civilisation.

Humans are intrinsically humanitarian, bar maladjusted individuals, within their peergroup. Any Law is just a formalisation of what most humans would live by naturally.

Because our society is not a single group of equals however, but of disparate groups and individuals, we have a (theoretically) unbiased lawsystem. This secular law is a compromise that most can tolerate.
Groups that demand to have more rights than others because 'they are right and everyone should be like them anyhow' SHOULD be marginalised and even penalised if it were up to me.

Anyhow, this concludes my promo for secularism.

[RAM]

I read through the first 8 pages, skipped to page 19, and read to here. But anyway, back on topic.

I'm a Christian, I believe in the whole heaven/hell thing.
Basically, I believe there has to be some kind of greater intelligence somewhere, because I don't think stuff just happens. The Big Bang Theory. Well, once, there was nothing. Except maybe a little tiny ball of condensed universe. Then it all exploded. Wa-la, we have a universe! I know that's exaggerating (not that much, though) but I just don't think that theory could be possible. Why, is the outstanding question, of course.

I am not sure there is a God, of course, no one can be. And if there was, I don't know if it would be the God in the Bible, or if it would be many gods, or anything. You could say that there is some race of aliens in a separate dimension or universe, and we are just their experiments. Or that there's a flying spaghetti monster floating around somewhere. Anyway I look at it, I just think that something made us for some reason.

The Earth is positioned so perfectly for life. I just think that everything would be really ironic if it was just a random occurrence.

The problem with that is that it doesn't resolve anything it just delays the problem. So you exists because god wants you, then why does god exists? If god exists because of the next god, and then another and another and so on forever, then that is an infinite cycle of deliberate acts. If instead you assume that the big bang was a continuation of something before it then that is an infinite progression of natural events, in my experience deliberate actions are generally finite in scope and natural processes are generally perpetual...

[Jackrabbit]

Oh boy. Now this thing is going to keep popping up in my new replies again.

[Phantom]

Let me say stuff to all you believers and atheists
Shit Happens
If there isn't a god, so your right atheist, your free to stop thinking about it
If there is a god, then stop thinking about it
If a guy with a bullet wound gets up and walks away, thats a case of Shit Happening

If im missing the point here, I don't care.

[Enzo]

RAM should not have disturbed this topics slumber.

[Jackrabbit]

You sort of are.
I mean, how can we know if there is or isn't a God? We can't prove it either way.
Therefore your point is invalid.

Wow, my first serious response. I'm a big boy!

[Phantom]

Alright to sum it up
Atheist:Gods not here, you suck
Religous Dude:THERE IS! HERESY!
Scientologists: -_-
Me:GUYS SHUT THE FUCK UP!
IF THERE ISN'T A GOD DON'T CRY ABOUT IT OR JUST GLOAT!
IF THERE IS, SO SHUT UP!
WHY CAN'T YOU PEOPLE STOP FLAMING EACH OTHER GEEZ!?
Scienintologists:=O
Religous Dude and Atheists:0_0