I was going to say something but Eph did it better than me
I've set up a bank account, just 20% of your income and an eventual relocation to our new church is all that's required for you to find the answers you need, the glimmer of light in the forest, obscured by earthy ignorance.Zarerion wrote:
my mind wanders in a dark forest
I find it to be a fundamental need, just like practicing arabesques is to the professional artist. While our culture retains certain ethics, it's still lacking things such as trust and love. Read Remembering, by Wendell Berry. It shows how our modern society's crumbled as far as how close people are with each other. As in, everyone's so shut in it's sad as hell.Tanzklaue wrote:
religion is an outdated concept. it was important in older times, because without lies nobody would seek for the truth, but now it's really just an old concept that brings more evil than it brings good things. you could argue that religion brings us important ethics, but ethics are deeply implemented in our culture, so we won't lose them if religion vanishes.
tl;drIppE wrote:
Religions are all quite silly and pointless.
Throw me quotes, do it.gurodoll wrote:
There is worth to be found in the various scriptures / texts, some are quite beautiful and thought provoking. On the other hand, such teachings that directly encourage segregation and discrimination of others really have no place in the present.
I was also raised religious, and I still am religious, although I don't affiliate myself with any organized religion. I don't attend church or anything like that and I don't read any of those stupid outdated books, mainly because I don't want other people telling me what god should be and what I should think. Basically I think it's important to free yourself from these silly influences and believe what you want to believe.Ephemeral wrote:
more wordsmathexpert9981 wrote:
words
First of all, these aren't silly influences at all; they're all backed by generations of bright minds, from Boethius to C.S. Lewis. In fact, it'd be very close minded of you to ignore them. Many of "those stupid outdated books" make excellent points and even agree on several matters with each other. Several cultures around the world, from the Far East to the Iberian Peninsula have had their intellectuals, all making similar assertions: Socrates, Confucius, Christ, and Laozi among them. While they all disagree on the nature of God or how evil works, their ideas are still worth considering.Kanye West wrote:
word festivalEphemeral wrote:
more words
I'm concerned as to how I didn't know anything about this and I live in Georgia.Wojjan wrote:
meanwhile: http://www.allout.org/en/actions/georgia
I didn't even take this into consideration when I first heard it because I thought it was a joke. I didn't even notice a link; thank you for bringing this to my attention, Tode.Cuddlebun wrote:
I'm concerned as to how I didn't know anything about this and I live in Georgia.Wojjan wrote:
meanwhile: http://www.allout.org/en/actions/georgia
Not as much as I have reason to be angered at these two words being used in the same sentence. Sometimes I have to believe that right wingers are engaged in a perpetual smear campaign against religion.Hika wrote:
religion & homophobia.
After reading everything,I have to agree with you on that one.Vext wrote:
Oh dear, nothing good can come from this topic.
I disagree; I think this is the chosen thread.Aurani wrote:
After reading everything,I have to agree with you on that one.Vext wrote:
Oh dear, nothing good can come from this topic.
My mind wanders in a dark forest,all hail our savior and messiah gurodoll.
No no, I mean this thread has awakened a primal urge in me to make quality posts rather than sink into depravity by posting a myriad of dancing lolis and shitposts. It has nothing to do with the quality of the thread per se.Hika wrote:
Nah, I thought Datzuke had the best thread of all OT. Nothing can compare.
+1 on that one.mm201 wrote:
I'll just say it. Homophobes are idiots.
Well I wish it was only that one..there's far,far more to that than simple "economic control".mm201 wrote:
Religion doesn't start wars, people do, usually fighting over economic control of some region.
Hoverlegs wrote:
my religon > your religion
You're overgeneralizing, for one thing. For another, hold your tongue; it's not something I can help. It's well within my ability to not oppress, to support, and to treat LGBTs as I would any other human being, but I can't control the tiny ulcer growing in my stomach when they talk to me about their sexual tendencies.mm201 wrote:
I'll just say it. Homophobes are idiots.
Provide examples.Well I wish it was only that one..there's far,far more to that than simple "economic control".mm201 wrote:
Religion doesn't start wars, people do, usually fighting over economic control of some region.
Also,basically everything comes down to what Hoverlegs mentioned in a sarcastic manner,and no matter what we do that'll always stay the same..Nope. Anyone that even bothers studying other religions can tell that each one has some truth to it. And if anyone ever asked why they believe what they do, they'd know that every religion is just about as valid as the next, the only difference being what you place your faith on.Hoverlegs wrote:
my religon > your religion
That's what I think a "good" believer should do with their respective religion too. But guess what? I've brought up that point when challenged by religious people on many occasions, but their answers are always along the line of "if you believe in the wrong god, then it is pointless no matter how many good deeds you do."Aeidxst wrote:
Religion was created with a good cause like preventing rape, murder, theft etc. I think. It was a positive idealistic system created to inspire harmlesss manners.
To provide examples?Brian OA wrote:
Well I wish it was only that one..there's far,far more to that than simple "economic control".mm201 wrote:
Religion doesn't start wars, people do, usually fighting over economic control of some region.The Middle East is about economic control, despite what they say.Brian OA wrote:
Provide examples.
Ephemeral wrote:
long words
You've been talking to the wrong people then. Let me be the first Catholic to tell you that your good deeds matter more than what you believe.Oinari-sama wrote:
but their answers are always along the line of "if you believe in the wrong god, then it is pointless no matter how many good deeds you do."
This is a very awkward debate that inevitably centers around Leviticus 18. Most Christian denominations do not consider it binding.DaddyCoolVipper wrote:
Honestly, I think that you can't say Christianity isn't homophobic. If you only believe the "core beliefs" of the Bible, then that means you're just cherry-picking the parts that make sense, which to me just seems ridiculous. IMO, if you're a "Christian", you should believe all of the Bible since you believe is "God's word". If you don't think it's "God's word", then why do you trust the New Testament?
it's useless for you to have an attitude like that. i don't care what a person worships or believe, they are people regardless and should be treated with the same respect and decorum as everybody else.Apex wrote:
It's useless for a Christian(I, that is.) to talk to an Atheist.
#1 cause of it, and for good reason. extremism twists the Christian ethos into something inexorably foreign and exclusive to what it actually is.. it's actually really terrifying.Mr Color wrote:
I was a Christian, but my extremist surroundings in high school made me lose faith.
This is a very poorly thought out statement. First off, there is a reason the bible is written by four people and then some. The bible isn't a sort of etiquette guide to heaven, it's a series of stories about a saint who, in comparison to other people, didn't treat everyone like shit, and the book was written with the idea of passing it on, so more people would live like this. It is much more comparable to the Torah than the Qur'an. Even today rabbis AND priests interpret the bible personally, and tell people the SENTIMENT behind the words. Nobody wrote that one womb passage thinking "so don't go committing abortion in a few thousand years, mkay?"DaddyCoolVipper wrote:
Honestly, I think that you can't say Christianity isn't homophobic. If you only believe the "core beliefs" of the Bible, then that means you're just cherry-picking the parts that make sense, which to me just seems ridiculous. IMO, if you're a "Christian", you should believe all of the Bible since you believe is "God's word". If you don't think it's "God's word", then why do you trust the New Testament?
WATCH OUT with religious beliefs of Aquinas. He was the biggest eclectic up to then in religion and philosophy, comparing the bible and Aristotle as if they were on the same level, and picking out parts for himself to follow from either. He himself got quite a bit of slag writing the Summa Theologica exactly because it wasn't much in line with religion up to then.mm201 wrote:
Wikipedia comes to the rescue, namely a quote from St. Thomas Aquinas, in explaining why this is not cherry picking:
mm201 wrote:
This is a very awkward debate that inevitably centers around Leviticus 18. Most Christian denominations do not consider it binding.
Wikipedia comes to the rescue, namely a quote from St. Thomas Aquinas, in explaining why this is not cherry picking:SPOILERhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_ ... n_CatholicRoman Catholic theologian Thomas Aquinas explained that there are three types of biblical precepts: moral, ceremonial, and judicial. He holds that moral precepts are permanent, having held even before the Law was given, since they are part of the law of nature;[9] ceremonial precepts, which deal with forms of worshipping God and ritual cleanness; and judicial precepts (such as those in Exodus 21[10]) came into existence only with the Law of Moses,[11] and were only temporary. The ceremonial commands were "ordained to the Divine worship for that particular time and to the foreshadowing of Christ".[12] Accordingly, upon the coming of Christ they ceased to bind,[13] and to observe them now would, Aquinas thought, be equivalent to declaring falsely that Christ has not yet come, for Christians a mortal sin.[14]
[...]
Unlike the ceremonial and judicial precepts, moral commands continue to bind, and are summed up in the Ten Commandments.
My argument was based around taking the Bible as the direct word of the omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient God. My issue with this view is that because God himself didn't write the Bible, the words could've easily been changed by the multiple writers to fit whatever agenda they have. That's more of a personal reason not to be Christian than anything, though. Thankfully the idea of separating the Bible's ideas solves the issue by meaning that not all of it has to be permanent. While Aquinas may not be the best source of information, that idea works perfectly well, I think.Wojjan wrote:
This is a very poorly thought out statement. First off, there is a reason the bible is written by four people and then some. The bible isn't a sort of etiquette guide to heaven, it's a series of stories about a saint who, in comparison to other people, didn't treat everyone like shit, and the book was written with the idea of passing it on, so more people would live like this. It is much more comparable to the Torah than the Qur'an. Even today rabbis AND priests interpret the bible personally, and tell people the SENTIMENT behind the words. Nobody wrote that one womb passage thinking "so don't go committing abortion in a few thousand years, mkay?"