The Glade 4.0

That would be all well and good, if religion weren't so commonly exploited for political and economic gain. Like, tying things back to the original topic, the Catholic Church's practice of deathbed conversions so that they could claim the deceased's estate.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Damn bastards deciding what to do with their stuff after they are dead, the nerve of some people.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

That's part of that gulf between religion and faith.

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Less in nomine patri, more ad hominem. This thread is seriously letting me down for entertainment.

Yes, people finding peace and happiness is rather insidious.

"Good" people doing evil probably aren't all that good, or at least not "good" in an absolute, infallible sense. In either case, them doing "evil" as a result of religion isn't all that remarkable or some condemnation or religion; and yes I mean religion vice faith.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

Well, the insidious nature is that, to some extent, they're both creating the illness and providing the cure. Working backwards, the gay-cure camps operate under an assumption that homosexuals inherently don't want to be homosexual, which is often not the case, but in no small amount of cases, gay men and women don't want to deal with the bigotry and hatred that is pushed upon them, largely by those with conservative values or upbringing. The camps offer a solution to this problem, by "not being gay," and therefore, not having to deal with that hatred in which the root cause is often the very people "curing" their homosexuality. It's sort of the equivalent of me going up to someone and saying "black hair is a sin, I'll shave it off for 20 bucks."

Taken a step further, nearly all of the peace and happiness provided by religion is a sham. You're finding momentary relief from stress that stems from guilt over failing to live up to the dictates of your religion. Remove religion, and you don't have the stress in the first place.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

What "gay-cure" camps is the catholic church running? Did the catholic church invent the human tendency to wonder what happens when we die?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Wow, this is pretty much total crap. People want to know what's going to happen when they die; that has nothing to do with religion. As for the idea that people find peace or happiness from living up to religious dictates, that's totally wrong as far as Christianity is concerned at least. People get peace and happiness from knowing they can't possibly live up to those dictates, and are not expected to.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Knowing they can't is what leads to the guilt.

Wow, indeed.

Religion has no more knowledge of what happens when people die than the people themselves do, and there's no reason to think that they do, there is only the belief that they do. But even then, if that were the whole story of what religion does, then I don't think anyone would care. People would just say "you're wrong," and move on.

However, religion does far, far more than just speculate about what happens when people die. It also persecutes non-members, and it reinforces a code of conduct which in many cases is antiquated and harmful. The problem in most cases is that most religions relate items of faith as items of fact. It's one thing to express a belief in what happens when you die, or why we're here, or in matters of morality, it's another to express it as fact.

The real issue is not faith in God, but faith in a "very specific God" where people somehow are completely convinced that even minor points of dogma, despite being thousands of years old and going through multiple translations, are 100% true and there can be no argument. I know someone who thinks that knowingly operating a light switch on the Sabbath is cause for eternal damnation. This is not approached in a "well we don't know for sure that the rules include light switches, but let's err on the side of not pissing God off" manner, but with 100% certainty that this is a sin and an offense to God.

Whether or not homosexuality is or isn't a sin isn't even clear. You don't know for sure that God looks down on homosexuality. All you can do is your best in interpreting it yourself, and if you decide that homosexuality is a sin, then great. But it's incredibly stupid and hypocritical for you to go tell other people (especially other Christians) that they're surely damned for accepting homosexuals, because there's no way for you to know that.

I always get a chuckle out of it when people deride others for claiming knowledge of an "unknowable" by stating that they are wrong.



Yes, yes it is.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

this thread is slightly depressing and I apologize for my own part in getting so off base. I can't explain a lot of things, about faith and religion, but I know its made a difference in my life. Like I said it's not something I can pin down for anyone, but at the same time I know that what I believe that there is a God, he loves and is going to take care of me now and through eternity, has changed how I view life.

I really don't want to force people into anything. However I do want to proclaim that which I feel to be true because I do believe it to be so. Not because I hate people, but because I care about them and believe there is a penalty for their actions left un-remedied. It's the easy thing to say nothing, to just shake my head and not write replies like this, but I do it because I do believe and I do care.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

As far as I am able to discern, knowing they can't should lessen any guilt they might feel. It's the knowing they did wrong that leads to guilt.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Incredible claims require incredible evidence. It really is just that simple.

If you want to claim that there is an omniscient and omnipotent benevolent God, that places 1 species ahead of all others out of ~8.7 million species only on this planet which is only 1 out of likely trillions or more plants in the universe, which quite possibly could be 1 universe out of many multiverses, then you better have some really incredible data to back that up.

The warm fuzzy feeling that some people get from reading a couple century old book, that constantly contradicts itself isn't enough.

I'm tired of arguing with you Azile. Have a good evening.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

This, generally speaking, is the "good" part of religion, and the point at which one can have a thoughtful and informative discussion of faith. Unfortunately for religion on the whole, this isn't the kind of sentiment that gets presented, particularly to those who are not religious.

I don't have much else for this thread other than to say that the atheistic posts, even though I don't really disagree with them, are what give people such a bad taste about atheism. They all kind of have the tone of "believers are 'tards." My main issue with religion is the sense of judgement I get from people when they know you're a non-believer, and I increasingly hate to make believers feel the same in reverse.

Um yes, the belief is the point. So you're pretty much in no position to say "wow." Furthermore, seeing as many religions have teachings that are ostensibly from a higher power, one or more might actually be correct. You really don't know.



Except that it really doesn't do any of these things. Persecution mostly is because of people and happens for a lot of reasons. As for "antiquated" or "harmful" no, pretty much not. this is entirely of the opinion of people who don't want to follow it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Unfortunately for those who say this, on the whole they insist on hearing what they want to hear based on preconceived ideas and to affirm their own dislike of belief. We've been over the fact that the point of Christianity is not "follow the rules" countless times, but people still try to pretend that it is because it supports their snark.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It is the position of the Catholic Church that it holds a monopoly over morality, not just for its followers, but for all human beings, everywhere, in all the times before and for all time yet to come; that a human being can not be moral except through adherence to their rules, and that it is adherence to their rules which makes a human being moral; that it has all of the answers to all questions, from the origins of life and the universe, to the cause of disease, proper management of human relationships, and finally death and what follows; and finally, that these rules and answers have been handed down from On High by the creator of the universe, and that agents of the institution speak the will of said creator. The Catholic Church is not unique in this outlook, as that is the stated position of nearly every religion worldwide. When such a claim is made, it is the responsibility of every sane individual throughout the world to grill that organization on its failures to live up to the expectations it sets for its followers.

Specifically referenced in this thread were the issues of homosexuality and child rape. The Catholic Church has been sheltering child rapists and covering their tracks for decades that we know of, and most likely centuries that we don't. The institution shields these child rapists from the legal system. The doctrines of the church tell us that these priests, these supposedly holy men, must be forgiven as God would forgive them, or else we are unclean in His sight and that God's love, the boundless love the church preaches that God has for all living things, will be withheld. The same institution then has the audacity to tell us that a person like Talya is unclean and wicked because of who she is and who she shares her life with. The teachings of the church on this matter are repugnant and vile, existing not for the benefit of the parishioners, but to degrade them and have them happily accept that degradation while the church collects their money.

The religious objection to homosexuality is insulting to the intelligence of every human being that hears it. Arafys is right to object to it, and it doesn't matter that he isn't Catholic. The pope certainly doesn't think it matters. The pope professes to be infallible, God's instrument on Earth, and seeks to impose his will on all human beings, Catholic or otherwise.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Sadly, I actually attempted to decipher the first "sentence" before realizing:

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

It's kinda hard to deal with people who believe an invisible being is in control of everything, and dictates everything in their life (and thus your life). I don't mean to be insulting or down right mean about it, but if you had a grownup who still believed his invisible childhood friend was real, or a grownup who was never told Santa wasn't real.......what is the appropriate way to deal with that without coming off as insulting? At some point, we have to say it's kinda messed up. And I'm not sure there is a nice way to put that.

I get that there are some real jerks out there, but that street goes both ways. And when people come knocking on my goddamn door to try and coerce me into believing in their invisible best friend, and why I should come to their church and donate my money, I gotta say my patience gets a little thin (and my beer is getting warm, dinner cold).

I think I should have just gone with Taly's remark a few weeks ago......I believe it was "**** religion".