buh buh

in many cases, religion compromises human happiness and subverts reality to uphold some arbitrary moral code which has no logical basis. Instead of a dialectic existing between reality and observing what's good for people and society and moral ideas, everything is very one-sided; we venture into the realm of the hypothetical immediately and apply this idea to society, whether or not it's actually a viable one. Even when people do decide to draw from reality, they come up with things like natural law, which only serves to more-or-less cripple the desires of certain individuals - referring to homosexuality again, an act which actually has no effect on the 60 year old clergyman who is prohibiting it, but for some reason is under his jurisdiction anyway - on the basis of some naturalistic fallacy that says just because something is, it ought.

there is no reason to deny the claim that we might have a sensus divinitatis (Calvin) and therefore that we need some religious opiate for whatever reason... to provide us some driftwood to cling to in hard times, or to give us some framework for life in general... but when that framework starts impeding the happiness of individuals who are entirely unconnected to us and have done nothing to deserve this breach of their rights, i think religion has gone too far. But then again, anything that brings individuals together into groups leads to a divide in society and hence sets the pedestal for discrimination. I'm not going to open discussion on the subject of human nature, but i think that might have something to do with it.

in short, i think that there is no reason to abolish religion altogether, but in an ideal world - at least for me - people would uphold religion on an individual basis, and not subvert the beliefs of others even though their opinion on the subject is of more-or-less equal value. This is my idea of religious freedom. How can it be done? I don't know, to be honest. As long as tradition remains, people will subconsciously adopt the beliefs of their heritage and remain close-minded to other approaches... even here though, I can't generalize. I was raised in a catholic household in a country that holds religion and superstition extremely close to heart, but I'd like to see myself as at least a bit more liberal, so it isn't that people can't become aware and change... ugh it's a hard question

/my rant i havent actually read the thread so sorry is something has been said already

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tyrael6192 wrote:

i havent actually read the thread so sorry is something has been said already

READ THE THREAD. A discussion consists of more listening than talking, especially in a public forum.

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Hey, Apex.

Stop speaking.

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No. You're digging your own grave even more.

Wojjan wrote:

tyrael6192 wrote:

i havent actually read the thread so sorry is something has been said already

READ THE THREAD. A discussion consists of more listening than talking, especially in a public forum.

I'm not seeking to dispute the opinion of anyone else here, i just wanted to throw my cards on the table.

Apex wrote:

Well, one thing good is that there are no Christian extremists here, or jesus1412's or Clawsmash's accounts would be f-cked up. They're actually homosexual.

How do you know about my sexuality... I never told anyone...

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the avatar is a girl x boy

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Apex wrote:

jesus1412 wrote:

How do you know about my sexuality... I never told anyone...

Your avatar gives it away.

OH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT HOLY SHIT I DIDN'T EVEN NOTICE.

I'm 100% serious, I didn't actually notice I was publicly expressing my sexuality :c.

this actually kind of belongs in general discussion because the topic has diverged from being lol ot shit to being somewhat interesting.. i just don't want it to get shit up by POST WHAT YOU HAD FOR DINNER LAST NIGHT pubbies

mathexpert9981 wrote:

>sasha grey

hell ain't that bad

Pizza.

Apex wrote:

There were two friends who were very close.(Imagine Apex and ME9981 as those two friends.)One spends his free time in markets and cities to learn, while the other one spends his freetime in his room reading and thinking to learn. Once when they were reading together, there were a festival, and the floats passed where they were reading. The former went to see what was going on, but before he could, the latter cut the straw mat(kind of function likes a sofa, but lighter and cheaper) they sat in to half, and said :"We are people of diferrent interests, therefore, we shouldn't be friends anymore." Therefore, different people with great different interests or thoughts should be friends.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make here. Firstly, it seems the your last two lines contradict each other. Are you using the tale as a bad example of how friendship should work? Either way, it seems you two are no longer friends since you now refuse to talk to him. There's nothing wrong with a Christian talking to an Atheist. Religion does not define a person.

That said, I've always thought that religion was a way to explain the unexplainable. Two thousand years ago nobody had any idea how the Earth was created, or what our solar system really looked like. It was convenient to say an entity far greater than mankind did such a task. This does not dismiss the idea that there is a God ruling over the universe though. Maybe there is, it cannot be proved of disproved. Of course, there are things that cannot be explained even when you believe there is a God that has created everything, such as the "how was God created" argument.

Whether you believe in science, religion, or both, there are still going to be questions you cannot answer. I agree with tyrael6192, religion should be practiced however an individual wants, as long as it does not encroach on those who do not wish it to.

One thing I am surprised to have not seen much discussion of in this thread is the morality of pushing religion on children. Most people would say institutions like the Westboro Baptist Church should not be pushing such hateful things upon their youth. Does the same go for the less extremist branches of different religions? Sure, they aren't doing such awful things, but how can it be morally acceptable to push such beliefs on a child who does not understand there are many different ways to look at their world? Even though they can't analyze the depth of religion, if you told a kid you would split a pack of cookies with him and then took all but one for yourself, he would be upset. Is it fair to withhold information about other religions and beliefs or to dismiss them as works of fiction? If there were no cookies in the first place then this problem would never arise.

Ephemeral wrote:

this actually kind of belongs in general discussion because the topic has diverged from being lol ot shit to being somewhat interesting.. i just don't want it to get shit up by POST WHAT YOU HAD FOR DINNER LAST NIGHT pubbies

I'm impressed. We're not moving a thread to GD because OT actually provides better discussion.

Kinda makes you think doesn't it

Mr Color wrote:

Hey, Apex.

Stop speaking.

Pretty much what I thought while reading all those comments...lol

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You're obviously doing it the wrong way.

Mr Color wrote:

I'm impressed. We're not moving a thread to GD because OT actually provides better discussion.

Kinda makes you think doesn't it

that in itself is a leap of faith. Eph never said OT provides better discussion. He said that, in GenD, the thread would get drowned out, suffocated, forgotten because of all the pointless threads in that board.

this is institutional racism
i blame the schools

Brian OA wrote:

my religion = your religion and words

So basically what you're saying is

Jesus = Allah = Haruhi = Kira Yamato

If every religion is just as valid as the next, only a single religion should exist and we'll all go to heaven. Of course it's better that way but we just can't have nice things, can we?

Why do you pledge to put faith in a certain religion instead of an other certain religion? Even if other religions might have questionable amount of truths in them, everything that came from your Bible, Quran or whatever should never be doubted or questioned, since that predicament could be deemed as blasphemy. Their ideals are probably not far from each other and they probably share the same goal, but the way they execute their actions to achieve it are different. And that matters a lot. Comparing religions is okay, but if you start doubting your own, you better think long and hard about what you're going to do next. If you truly have faith in your religion, you should think of it as the greatest, and any thoughts of believing in an other religion should be thrown away. Otherwise just join the one you think is greater or quit religion and rely on SCIENCE

yes, religion sounds really unreasonable

ALSO I DON'T INTO RELIGION I HAVE NO NAMES OF PEOPLE TO DROP

and since homophobia is mentioned in this thread, I don't mind gay people but I have to admit that I think Clawsmash is way too open about his sexuality in his posts, and he should tone his gayness down alot little

tyrael6192 wrote:

I'm not seeking to dispute the opinion of anyone else here, i just wanted to throw my cards on the table.

That's not how a discussion works. We don't want a pile of cards, we want a deck.

Wojjan wrote:

tyrael6192 wrote:

I'm not seeking to dispute the opinion of anyone else here, i just wanted to throw my cards on the table.

That's not how a discussion works. We don't want a pile of cards, we want a deck.

The thing is,we can't possibly form a deck from this pile of cards...or should I say this mess...

You can still try

Hoverlegs wrote:

Brian OA wrote:

my religion = your religion and words

So basically what you're saying is

Jesus = Allah = Haruhi = Kira Yamato

If every religion is just as valid as the next, only a single religion should exist and we'll all go to heaven. Of course it's better that way but we just can't have nice things, can we?

A single religion would be impossible, given how almost every one is based on some form of divine intervention, such as Christ's birth, death, and resurrection, or some prophet squatting in a cave and communicating with an angel (this would cross out Haruhi and Kira, since their origins are of a different nature). Most of these religions might have similar moral and ethical codes, but they would still disagree on whether there is a heaven at all, on what happens to your soul or whether you even have one, etc. You can't compromise two religions where one says evil is an equal force to good and another that says evil has no power in the face of good. Zoroastrianism and Christianity wouldn't mix in that case.

I believe you're judged bases on your consciousness, meaning you're not going to be condemned if you have nothing to feel guilt or shame for. Meaning any good Shintoist, atheist, or pagan has as much of a shot of getting in Heaven as a Christian would, assuming said Heaven exists.

There can only be one true religion, but our method of determining that is far too arbitrary to be making claims such as "my religion>your religion". I have my reasons for placing my faith in Christianity, but it's not like I have empirical evidence supporting it. I won't have it even if I were Hindu, Islamic, or Jewish.

Why do you pledge to put faith in a certain religion instead of an other certain religion? Even if other religions might have questionable amount of truths in them, everything that came from your Bible, Quran or whatever should never be doubted or questioned, since that predicament could be deemed as blasphemy. Their ideals are probably not far from each other and they probably share the same goal, but the way they execute their actions to achieve it are different. And that matters a lot. Comparing religions is okay, but if you start doubting your own, you better think long and hard about what you're going to do next. If you truly have faith in your religion, you should think of it as the greatest, and any thoughts of believing in an other religion should be thrown away. Otherwise just join the one you think is greater or quit religion and rely on SCIENCE

AND YET WE ALL DOUBT. Even Mother Theresa doubted, for Pete's sake. Even Christ doubted when he was suffering the greatest pain any man could bear. Yet we all remember them as saints or the alleged Son of God. Faith wavers and makes you doubt a lot assuming you're not shutting the rest of the world out.

It's not blasphemy to question a book of scripture, though; that's something entirely different.

Aurani wrote:

so many words

Well cripe, if you don't know why, then you might as well not say it at all. If they have a reason to contend for it, it has to be profitable in some way, be it through money or power. But if you're just going to throw an ambiguous, unclear example and then say "we can't discuss it because we'd go in circles (as if we don't do that with every topic under the sun)" then don't mention it at all; you're not proving any points with that and providing no grounds to argue with either.

the only thing I want to add is that religion is basically a mere tool that certain people who rule the world use to control the masses with relative ease.It's in the nature of a creature to hate or fear somebody or something just because it can't understand it,and since most of Earth's population consists of intellectually crippled people,you can only expect religion to be used to control them in more ways than just the economic one.

A completely baseless statement. To clarify, the tool to control the masses isn't religion, it's comfort and media. That's the whole point in Brave New World, if you've ever read it. Secondly, you're not being clear; how is being afraid of the unknown and being intellectually crippled somehow relate to being controlled by religion? Thirdly, you're implying that the majority of the population is intellectually crippled--somehow making them subject to being religious. As if ignorance means religion. Yet there are exorbitant amounts of religious intellectuals, famous or not, around the globe, throughout history, and in every book.

Brian OA wrote:

Even Christ doubted when he was suffering the greatest pain any man could bear

To be frank, Jesus got off really lightly. Crucifixion was a punishment for the pettier criminals, remember.

I wonder if more people would believe it if he had suffered the boats, or the brazen bull?

>Implying crucifixion is light.

Relatively speaking, sure. Nonetheless excruciatingly painful and would kill anyone regardless.

Ok since this got waaay out of hand I'm just gonna keep it short:
1) I would really like to have a debate with you,since I see that you're well informed and have a bright head unlike most people.The reason why I can't is because I can't find the proper words/way to express myself the way I would like to,so essentially I'm in a dead end here...sadly,since I'm really in the mood for a healthy debate.
2) There isn't only 1 tool to control the masses,there are many ways to deceive someone,mainstream religions being one of them.I just believe that there is no need for religious organisations at all,they serve no purpose other than dividing people,causing distrust etc.
3) My mind wanders in a dark forest,all hail our messiah gurodoll.

1) Look up Strunken White. It's short and will help immeasurably.

2) Religions don't deceive; you're implying it's a big lie. Unless we're talking about Scientology.

3) Stahp

Brian OA wrote:

1) Look up Strunken White. It's short and will help immeasurably.

Just checked,I think that will be well worth my time.

Brian OA wrote:

2) Religions don't deceive; you're implying it's a big lie. Unless we're talking about Scientology.

They don't?As far as I know there was more than 1 occasion where Popes/various other people changed something related with religion to make people "bow" to their will,for the sake of their personal profit(or power,which is related to profit-like you mentioned 2 posts before).I'm not saying that everything is wrong,I'm against organisations and not against the core-believing in something divine.

Brian OA wrote:

3) Stahp

Are you trying to oppress my religious beliefs? *pulls out a gun*

Hoverlegs wrote:

and since homophobia is mentioned in this thread, I don't mind gay people but I have to admit that I think Clawsmash is way too open about his sexuality in his posts, and he should tone his gayness down alot little

you would have to then make the counterargument that everyone else has to tone down the heterosexuality in their posts. You just called that girl "kawaii uguu cute =3="? KILL YOURSELF

the rest of the people arent talking about how they are heterosexual and making extremely heterosexual comments in 50% of their posts

Maybe he just wants attention...but that's his way of dealing with things...he still has the right to express himself however he wants,doesn't he?

im not against it, animask has been the same for ages and nobody seems to be bothered by it.

I never said you were,I'm still new here and clearly don't have the right to say anything against you...I was just saying that he shouldn't be the main point of the discussion,since everyone has their own opinion about a certain individual.

Wojjan wrote:

tyrael6192 wrote:

I'm not seeking to dispute the opinion of anyone else here, i just wanted to throw my cards on the table.

That's not how a discussion works. We don't want a pile of cards, we want a deck.

Wojjan you of all people should know that OT doesn't work like that
so in the spirit of things, i made a post semi-relevant to the title of the thread without relating it to any previously-made post... i'm not asking you to read it or draw anything from it :I

But OT should be better than that.

It should at least be one of those fancy chrome-plated trash cans that open when you get close to them.