Religion Thread

Much of the Bible is very flawed historical record, which was important to the authors but not much to us these days.

So has anyone changed their religious perspective since last they posted about it?

Nope.

And I still don't think keeping this thread alive is a good idea

Not with an attitude like that gosh
I have faith we're all mature enough not to attack each other

Got the nuke.



Shall I begin?

someguy3657 wrote:Nope.

And I still don't think keeping this thread alive is a good idea

Because attempting to discuss sensitive topics such as religion and politics is to much for a bunch of manchildren like us to handle right?
 
Serious thread, serious uses, serious discussions. If you can't handle it leave it to those who can.
 

SQUIGGLES wrote:Not with an attitude like that gosh
I have faith we're all mature enough not to attack each other

This ^
 
No my religious views haven't changed, but I'm considered more 'spiritual' over religious. I've become interested in Taoist philosphy and Discordianism again though and am currently researching other branches of these.
 

Hollyღ wrote:And there are various positions of meditation, each meaning a certain thing. Some people meditate standing up, but I heard that's really hard to do.

Just wanted to brag that since I posted this last year I have now advanced enough to be able to try these types of meditation!

I might have some books on those, if you want

I ended up with a couple different translations of the Tao Te Ching (Legge and Mitchell, I think) and I know I have a link somewhere that has a whole folder of Discordian texts
PM me about it in case I forget

Hollyღ wrote:

someguy3657 wrote:Nope.

And I still don't think keeping this thread alive is a good idea

Because attempting to discuss sensitive topics such as religion and politics is to much for a bunch of manchildren like us to handle right?

No, no, no, please don't put words in my mouth. I'm not saying it's a bad idea to keep this thread alive because it's too much for us. I'm saying it because I've seen many religious threads and posts on many different sites, and most if not all of them ended with no one changing their minds and everyone hating each other a little more. It doesn't have to end up in pure hatred, but it can still bring some hostility in a few posts.

I'm not trying to avoid talking about religion. On the contrary, if this:
 

SQUIGGLES wrote:I have faith we're all mature enough not to attack each other

... truly does happen, then I am perfectly fine with discussing my beliefs

Well I been asked to so I will post in the religious thread, I will be sharing my views with you as best as I can in this post and will provide feedback on some of the posts made.

First a bit of background.

I am an atheist, I was raised Christian (Southern Baptist) in a very religious part of the country. I went to Sunday School every Sunday and was a pretty good student if I could say for myself. Anyways as I got older and learned more about the world around me and got better educated I never thought about my religious affiliation for a while until it was presented to me and I finally had to think about it. I then made the decision to let it go, religious belief was nice but I had to let it go. I would be lying and hypocritical to go to church when I myself did not believe, there was no consolidation between religious belief and reality for me. That is the reader's digest version. I did go through a "crisis" but I will spare you all the details.

As for my views, well as an atheist it should be obvious. Religion is false.

I have come to the reality the religious beliefs are false. There is no god(s) and certainly no god(s) as described in the bible or koran or whatever. Religious persons may contest that statement by saying how old certain religions or belief systems are or where we get our morality from. Well I say is that being wrong for 2,000+ years does not make a right. Geocentric theory was "true" for a long time before getting replaced by heliocentric theory when the facts were presented. The earth being flat, where diseases came from, what the stars were in the sky, the nature of motion or gravity, all of these were known as truth because people believed them until evidence proved it otherwise and I will say the same for god(s).

As for morality? Morality comes from humans and society, not god(s) or religion. We are the judges for and ultimately as a society for our morals. Altruism is a human behavior, justice and equal rights are a human invention. The bible or koran are very poor sources for morality given they were penned by waring tribes thousands of years ago. The authors of the bible penned the works to suit the lifestyle of the day and age.

For spirituality? That makes less sense for me, Discordianism or "new age spirituality" is very ridiculous to me if you follow it with any kind of seriousness. As a distraction or something fun to do, or as a parody to religious ceremony then sure I can understand that. Frankly is can get to be very dangerous for yourself to take them seriously. New age touts of medicinal healing or :auras" or "chi" or some kind of energy to be made available to them are quite false and can have serious consequences for people you pursue them without one foot in reality.

Now while I have my opinions on religious views I will not impede someone from having religious views. Now I will be a critic to but I will listen and read material presented to me regardless of my own views. Expanding your knowledge of other cultures and beliefs can lead to enriching your own life by learning about the world around you. Philosophy still has an important role in society but not a scientific role.

I apologize for offending anyone with what I post these are just how I view things. I will stop here, there is a bit I could post on but I haven't quite thought out the best way to word it. If you like to ask me questions then feel free I would be happy to have a discussion. Just keep it here okay?

someguy3657 wrote:

Hollyღ wrote:

someguy3657 wrote:Nope.

And I still don't think keeping this thread alive is a good idea

Because attempting to discuss sensitive topics such as religion and politics is to much for a bunch of manchildren like us to handle right?

No, no, no, please don't put words in my mouth. I'm not saying it's a bad idea to keep this thread alive because it's too much for us. I'm saying it because I've seen many religious threads and posts on many different sites, and most if not all of them ended with no one changing their minds and everyone hating each other a little more. It doesn't have to end up in pure hatred, but it can still bring some hostility in a few posts.

I'm not trying to avoid talking about religion. On the contrary, if this:
 

SQUIGGLES wrote:I have faith we're all mature enough not to attack each other

... truly does happen, then I am perfectly fine with discussing my beliefs

"I'm not saying it's a bad idea to keep this thread alive because it's too much for us I'm just saying I've seen this fail on other threads and it would be too much for us"


Also you just made a wordier rehashed what I had posted
Also constantly speaking doomsday for a thread dosen't allow the thread to even have mature conversation.
This also goes back the first page when Zebra pulled this shit


@Sam - Yeah hey thanks for sharing that
You're very sure of your views and I just wanted to know what changed in your life to make you believe all that
Personal experiences? Research? Both?

SQUIGGLES wrote:I might have some books on those, if you want

I ended up with a couple different translations of the Tao Te Ching (Legge and Mitchell, I think) and I know I have a link somewhere that has a whole folder of Discordian texts 
PM me about it in case I forget

Hey hey yes please

I have a serious question for those who don't identify as Christian/believe in a Christian god: do you feel guilty attending church services? I feel bad going these days, because in moments of prayer I feel like I haven't got anything to say for myself. It's like a hollow impression of what I used to do when I worshiped, and in the presence of so many devout people, I feel like it's crass to be there.

That might be more to do with my estrangement from the community than with my faith, but my congregation is typically very pleasant and accepting of all comers, so it's not that big a factor. Do you guys ever experience such a thing? Or do you simply not attend?

I am going to make a rather large post in here, I would appreciate it if I could have a few more moments to type it out before we switch the topic.

Ziggles wrote:I have a serious question for those who don't identify as Christian/believe in a Christian god: do you feel guilty attending church services? I feel bad going these days, because in moments of prayer I feel like I haven't got anything to say for myself. It's like a hollow impression of what I used to do when I worshiped, and in the presence of so many devout people, I feel like it's crass to be there.

That might be more to do with my estrangement from the community than with my faith, but my congregation is typically very pleasant and accepting of all comers, so it's not that big a factor. Do you guys ever experience such a thing? Or do you simply not attend?

Do I feel guilty attending church? Well no. I've been invited to services with friends after I realized I was an atheist. Being a part of the community isn't something to be ashamed of even if it is something you do not yourself agree with. I just was quiet and non disruptive during the service, yeah I bowed my head during prayer but I did not pray, you can politely decline communion like I do. I just do not profess any belief in Jesus or anything like that. I guess I got lucky I never get called on to do so. I just politely participate in activities.

I'm not really looking to debate today, I was just curious what people believed and if this post ever lets any of my personal philosophical bias out then that is not my intention.

This isn't directly just at you, Sam, because I think pretty much everyone (not just people on the forum but all over the internet and out and about in the world) are guilty of this but this is something I want to talk about and it's easier to organise my thoughts with prompts so I will use your post as a little bit of a platform. Apologies in advance if you ever feel personally slighted by this.

Samiam wrote:I apologize for offending anyone with what I post these are just how I view things.

I meet a lot of people, online and offline, and I like to find out what they're about so inevitably religion tends to come up. I don't know shit about the universe but I do know people, and I'll admit I don't know what it's like in Texas or Michigan or Belgium but certainly here in Victoria and, most importantly, on the Internet, I don't think it's about someone's religious views (atheist or christian or zoroastrian, etc) offending another; I think more often arguments are started because of the way people talk about their beliefs. I mentioned this once, briefly, before in this thread, a long time ago, but I don't think anyone thought on it, or remembers it, so I'll go into a bit more in depth now.

Look, I've talked to most of you guys and girls about pretty much everything and I strongly believe that you all don't really care about people's opinions as long as they're not harming anyone- but the way that some of you talk it really does not sound that way. I know it's not intentional and, let's be honest, I am probably more autistic than the rest of you, but it's something that is hard to work on without someone else pointing it out.

I was talking to people last night about this so Dennis I will use your notorious post on the previous page for examples- I know you, now, would probably change the way some of it was worded so don't take it personally; I think we all know that past people are different from present people.

Examples of aggravating discussion:

This post makes good points, I'm not even going to pretend it doesn't and turn this into some atheist bashing thing; Gorgro is justified in having those opinions and even if it wasn't justified then he's allowed to have those opinions anyway. The point, though, is the attitude it was typed in was very condescending. Religion, or lack of it, is most often a core part of a person's philosophy and condescension is inevitably going to irritate anyone who's receiving it. It's perfectly understandable to criticise someone's beliefs, to show them where you're coming from or try and "enlighten" them or whatever, if you go about it in the right way (and not every time are you going to meet a person who takes the criticism as they should, but I digress) but if it goes from criticism to chastisement then the person isn't going to take it well, no matter how right you might be. Religious perspective is something that shapes a person and they take with them throughout their entire life; it is a very sensitive topic and should be respected.

When I mention "condescension" I mean particularly sarcasm and this:

Your premise is flawed.

This is essentially "you're wrong" in meaning and, see, it hurts to be told you're wrong. A nicer way to say it is "I disagree" because that places the onus on yourself and this is particularly helpful because:
* it is easy to misconstrue the meaning of a post
* it is hard for some people to express their ideas through text
* what you think might be wrong might be correct if you look at it from another perspective
I'm not christian or jewish or religious but it annoys me regardless when I see this.

Samiam wrote:Religion is false ... There is no god(s) and certainly no god(s) as described in the bible or koran or whatever.

This is the same thing here; I believe this is the most important thing that annoys people. I can't even begin to describe the difference that prefacing statements like this with "I believe" would make. It's a very simple phrase and it definitely does change the entire attitude of statements.

Samiam wrote:Now I will be a critic to but I will listen and read material presented to me regardless of my own views. Expanding your knowledge of other cultures and beliefs can lead to enriching your own life by learning about the world around you.

This, I empathise with completely. I want it to be 100% clear that the point of this post isn't to stop people from criticising and debating but to point out that there is a nicer way to do it.

The final thing I would like to talk about is karma, god damn it. Stop giving negative karma, when people give their opinion, even if it's a shitty god damn condescending awful opinion, you shitlords. This makes me vapid. It is the equivalent of shouting at someone to "shut up". All it does is make people hesitant to post in here. It does not promote discussion in any form, it only makes things worse.

-

To summarise; these are things to make discussion a little more civil and I believe would pretty much stop any arguments from forming:
* no negative karma in this thread (particularly during debates)
* apologising for hurting feelings (if they have been hurt)
* acknowledgement every now and then that you recognise people are entitled to their beliefs
* no sarcasm
* sucking it up, occasionally

I don't think these are too difficult or demanding to think about doing, at least,

"shit, sash, it's embarrassing to do any of that why are you such a fucking killjoy nerd"

well it's a small tithe to stop arguments and stress and hurt feelings. If anyone is still getting angry or annoyed and can't control themselves after that then that's something they'll have to work on themselves, and if anyone here is actually looking to start arguments they can kindly fuck off, please-

People already express their trepidation at posting in here and this annoys me because I legitimately want to know what you all believe and I fucking hate trying to get people to cram it into the character limit on TinyChat where they feel safer expressing it.
Religion and philosophy is something people should be happy and enthusiastic about sharing:
"LOOK AT WHAT HELPS GIVE MY LIFE MEANING"

It should never be an argument about who is right.

If anyone disagrees with any of this I am very happy to hear about it; hopefully I've got it all wrong and in reality none of you are getting angry and you're all mellow as fuck.

oh look sash you typed all that shit and no-one will even read it all or reply to it anyway
good fucking job

Hollyღ wrote:Hey hey yes please

Email on the way, little buddy

@Sam - Yeah hey thanks for sharing that
You're very sure of your views and I just wanted to know what changed in your life to make you believe all that
Personal experiences? Research? Both?

Well I guess someone would say I never really believed. I did, when I was younger I really believed.

I don't think anything changed in my life, I just got older and learned more about the world around me. Religion and personal belief just occupies some sacred cow position of being untouchable in our lives. I guess I finally looked at my beliefs critically and found that it does not work. I saw the world as it is.

I very much agree with Sasha. With serious topics we must not take ourselves lightly, and choose our words with a care to how people will react to them. I don't think any of you are ever aiming for inflammatory with your posts, because you are all decent and sweet people. You are also all my friends, and this is not something that should be forgotten when matters of import are at hand.

If we can make this work I will be very happy because I want to be able to talk to you guys about stuff like this. I will try hard to be accepting and not dismissive or absolutist about things.
Possibly Debate Rules are deserving of their own thread/sticky but this is something we will need to workshop.

We can make this work, so long as everyone keeps an open mind acknowledges that no one is right about everything, and, most importantly of course, you can get discussion out of people like me whose initial reactions to debates such as this tend to be "Oh God, they're discussing smart stuff that I don't know anything about, fuck I'm an ignorant cunt."

I see your point and I am sorry if the tone of my post offended anyone, I was writing without a filter, so to speak. This resulted in more of a sledgehammer approach to get my point across and I didn't bother to smooth it out more. I know people don't really expect such controversial views from me since I usually just try to please everyone, but this is something I feel very strongly about and I'm not going to take it back.

I try to keep my replies directed at the post I disagree with rather than the person who posted them, but the fact that this thread sort of meandered into a "Yes it is" "No, it isn't" style of posting detracted from the constructiveness of all the posts, including mine. I understand that it might be difficult to keep this from happening again, but I'm willing to let this thread live to at least try.
I just want to make clear that I didn't mean any personal offense and I don't think less of anyone for holding to the views they do, despite what everyone might think. There is more to a person than their religious beliefs.

Sasha described in better terms than I ever could why I thought this thread was a bad idea last page.

It's less about me avoiding religious topics, it's more me trying to avoid posts that can legit offend people

But shit, if we can avoid condescending posts and petty arguments, like I said, I'm totally down for discussion

Plus I strongly agree with everything else in that post.

Since I can't give him a cookie, I'll give him a karma

Can I get the cookie?

Anyway, Charles is already aware of my belief but we didn't know how it was called or if there was a name. Well I found it: Possibilianism

You see, I don't know if there is a God but I know there are no proof of his existence, nor his non-existance. I personally don't count the Bible has the words of God or Jesus or whatever. For me it's only a book written by mortal humans saying to be good to each other. The only bad thing is that some people, like the Pope and stuff, chose what was to be in there and kept modifying it over years so I don't know what is true or not.

I was born in a part-time religious family. My grand-mother is a believer and my mother sometime go to church when she has time. They sometime brought me there with them but I never felt anything toward what the priest was saying aside from curiosity. You see I kinda didn't cared about what Jesus did. I only cared about the message he was giving.

Then I discovered science. Lots and lots of question I had got answered by science. But the God question was never answered.

Further in my life, when I had a shitload of knowledge in science, I started to think that, what if God created science? What if science was his engine to create thing like if science was a recipe: you mix stuff together, make some change in temperature and pression then boom you get something. And what if te Big Bang was actually created by God because he was tired of the emptyness of space? I have tons of these.

I know the need of knowledge of the human race has led to disasters, but I still believe that science might give us the answers we are looking for since always. Or maybe science is all wrong and religion was actually true. I don't know but the possibilities are so huge that no theories are to be shut down or something.


Well there you go.

Now give me my cookie.

Thank you for reading my post, guys, I appreciate that you guys put up with the insane word count and ranting.

I reckon it's not essential to have a thread solely for debate rules but maybe we could all work together o-
you know what actually I'll post about that in Real Talk Thread.

The possibilian perspective is distinguished from agnosticism in its active exploration of novel possibilities and its emphasis on the necessity of holding multiple positions at once if there is no available data to privilege one over the others.

cookie
I have never heard of this before, Stef, where'd you find out about it? I can't believe I've never heard of it. It's kind of kooky and serious at the same time, it's very classic you; I love it.

Well I found the name when I was reading stuff about Albert Enstein and the name came out. So I went to check and BOOM that was it.

Ziggles wrote:I have a serious question for those who don't identify as Christian/believe in a Christian god: do you feel guilty attending church services? I feel bad going these days, because in moments of prayer I feel like I haven't got anything to say for myself. It's like a hollow impression of what I used to do when I worshiped, and in the presence of so many devout people, I feel like it's crass to be there.

That might be more to do with my estrangement from the community than with my faith, but my congregation is typically very pleasant and accepting of all comers, so it's not that big a factor. Do you guys ever experience such a thing? Or do you simply not attend?

I think this is an interesting perspective, but I wouldn't worry about feeling guilty. When I was at university, I attended a meeting of the Christian Fellowship and one of the things they stressed was that you didn't need to be a Christian, or even religious, to attend: there was an emphasis on getting together and having a good time with a veneer of Christianity overlaying it. In the same sense, I imagine many members of a Christian congregation would be happy to have non-believers attend and welcome them as part of a community rather than it being an outpouring of and declaration of religious faith.

Sorry for the late posting, it took me a while to think over what I want to say.

For starters, Sash just so we are clear about this. I find you using me as a platform to try to drive home a point very offensive. The reasons are I feel like I been made an example of so soon after joining the conversation I was apart of for breaking rules that were did not yet exist for the thread until after I posted. I don't have any ill will for you Sash I just want to be clear.

I will go ahead and try to make some points.

Samiam wrote:Religion is false ... There is no god(s) and certainly no god(s) as described in the bible or koran or whatever

.

This is the same thing here; I believe this is the most important thing that annoys people. I can't even begin to describe the difference that prefacing statements like this with "I believe" would make. It's a very simple phrase and it definitely does change the entire attitude of statements.  

This is probably the most important point I have to make.

I introduced myself to the conversation and stated I am an atheist then went onto explain what that was. "Your religion is false" is just how atheists view religious belief. Just as how a Christan knows that Jesus is lord I know that Jesus is not. Just how a Buddhist knows of karma and rebirth I know them to be false.

If I had doubts or based the existence of god on a personal belief then I would be agnostic. I cannot change my statement to make it more palatable.

This is actually a problem faced by atheists, and yes you are right people do not like being told they are wrong yet that is the de facto position I am in when I explain I am an atheist and simply do not have belief in a supernatural position. By expressing a difference in opinion I am (by default) telling you that you are wrong.

I just had to get that out of the way.

That is not my intention to offend you but if getting told you are wrong is something to get you offended then quite frankly coming into a discussion about religion is not a conversation you are prepared to be a part of. I do not get apprehensive to being told I am wrong and if I am told so about a point or statement I made then I would ask you to explain why I am.

I was in my post attempting to open lines of dialog about my views on religion as well as try to answer questions asked of me but If you are going to place personal belief into a "no touching" zone to be held as some sacred cow of no hurting feelings then sadly I have nothing to discuss with you Sash and take my leave of this topic.

I think you're missing the point of my post.

Samiam wrote:I introduced myself to the conversation and stated I am an atheist then went onto explain what that was. "Your religion is false" is just how atheists view religious belief ... If I had doubts or based the existence of god on a personal belief then I would be agnostic. I cannot change my statement to make it more palatable.

"Religion is false" is a personal belief, is my point, and should be labelled as such, otherwise it comes off as an attack. It's not a fact, it's an opinion. You obviously believe it's a fact yeah, but believing something is a fact then puts it all back on "belief"

Samiam wrote:people do not like being told they are wrong ... That is not my intention to offend you but if getting told you are wrong is something to get you offended then quite frankly coming into a discussion about religion is not a conversation you are prepared to be a part of.

I'm not sure if I made my stance clear enough because this is the complete opposite of what I was saying; my post isn't about telling people they're wrong, it is about telling people they're wrong in the wrong way.

Samiam wrote:If you are going to place personal belief into a "no touching" zone to be held as some sacred cow of no hurting feelings then sadly I have nothing to discuss with you Sash and take my leave of this topic.

I'd like to pull an example from another thread because I think it is extremely relevant: this old thing here where you gave everyone negative karma for making jokes about your "sacred cow"

from that there linky wrote:Guys those jokes were not the least bit funny to me. Granted I won't deny you your right to make them but the memory is still fresh in my mind even after all those years.

It's not fair to say "you have the right to talk about something" and then tell people off for it; it doesn't work like that because you're going back on the "you're allowed to talk about it" part.

If you're allowed to make 9/11 a sacred cow on the Silly Board and ask that everyone is respectful about it, then I think I'm allowed to make religion a sacred cow, in the Religion Thread on the Serious Board.

Samiam wrote:I find you using me as a platform to try to drive home a point very offensive. The reasons are I feel like I been made an example of so soon after joining the conversation I was apart of for breaking rules that were did not yet exist for the thread until after I posted.

I don't feel like I should have given a grace period or wait for issues to build up. I saw a potential problem and something had been annoying me (for a long time in this thread, before you even posted in it) and I did something to try and resolve it. I could have used older examples but why would I pass up something that everyone had fresh in their minds and could quickly relate to?

If it's too much trouble to play nice for the sake of others then I don't think this thread is the place for you.