Easier said than done, bud.
I get the impression from this forum that the ability to just up stakes and migrate must be a lot easier elsewhere.
Religion, what's the point?
- Thread starter TheRedFlag
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I get the impression from this forum that the ability to just up stakes and migrate must be a lot easier elsewhere.
Haha, I was the other one who told him (you) to leave (for Canada initially). But it was in jest, kind of. As long as you and your family are relatively safe and sane and beyond the brainwashing then you're ok.
And get your hair cut, seeing as you can where you are. :P
Probably also not the worst thing if there are people (especially teachers) around who can impart a different perspective on things.
My wife cuts my hair. Buzz cuts are easy peazy.
Steal that ridiculous big boat those lunatics have built. That'd get you somewhere at least.
Seriously though, I can't believe that's the mainstream mindset in your locale. You won't remember but years ago I was asking why you owned guns. I think I'm beginning to understand. Who could feel safe surrounded by those mad bastards?
Very true.
Well, I'm glad I can give some insight into just what it's like to live here
This forum has taught me a great deal about mindsets abroad, and I just hope that I can do the same for others.
That you do and it is appreciated. I've read many of your posts about your extraordinary conversations at your school and I suppose I'd never really considered how prevalent the evangelical mindset was in your state. I hope you get through to some of them, especially the kids.Well, I'm glad I can give some insight into just what it's like to live here
This forum has taught me a great deal about mindsets abroad, and I just hope that I can do the same for others.
Well, thank you.
As for religion in South Carolina, here ya go...
https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/state/south-carolina/
The district I work for actually just got in trouble with the federal government for prayer at school functions. Ordered to pay half a million in legal fees... there are colleagues who are saying they're going to protest the court ruling by praying openly at graduation next week. Seems like a solid plan
My IQ just dropped to single digits, and I have an important deadline for next week. Thanks!
One thing I am always curious about with religion: is believing in God - or whichever other deity you follow - a prerequisite to getting your eternal paradise in the afterlife?
I always think that if I try to live my life by a good moral code, and to be a good person - why should I be denied entry to heaven just because I didnt engage in worship or prayer? To put it another way, is God really so narcissistic that they are that interested in whether you believe in them or not, rather than how you have lived your life?
I always think that if I try to live my life by a good moral code, and to be a good person - why should I be denied entry to heaven just because I didnt engage in worship or prayer? To put it another way, is God really so narcissistic that they are that interested in whether you believe in them or not, rather than how you have lived your life?
Depends on the religion, but on Christianity and Islam, unquestionably yes. It doesn't matter if you're the nicest person of all time, if you don't believe in God, you burn.
interesting. Conversely, is it also the case that your worldly actions don’t really matter as long as you are pious enough? That would certainly explain a lot.
Either way I find the whole concept somewhat anathema to any argument that religion is about teaching morals and common decency.
Unless you're Pope Francis, who apparently throws the whole last 1900 years of Christian theology out with the bath water.
Not sure about Christianity, but when it comes to Islam, if your last words are 'I believe in God, and in his prophet' (or some similar version of it), and you truly mean it, the heaven is guaranteed regardless of what you did in your life. So technically speaking, if someone like Genghis Khan did it, he'll be on heaven. More complicated for Hitler cause he made suicide and that is hell guaranteed. Dunno, if Hitler did that, Allah will be very confused.
To be fair, there are shades of gray there. You never know when you are gonna die, so it is not that you can do whatever you want, and then just play the ace 5 seconds before you die. And the God knows your thoughts as well, so cheating him is more difficult than playing against the casinno. But if a truly wicked person, at the end of his life, regrets (really, not just claiming that, but really regrets) what he did, and truly starts believing in God, he'll go to heaven. Plus Allah has a weird sense of humor, if you're really bad, and then, in the end, decide to play the Shahadat card, he might just not allow you (for example, he drowned the Pharaon before he was able to say that he believes in Moses' God).
Bless him! Trying to find a way for the religion to co-exist in modern society, even if it means contradicting everything the religion stands for. At that stage, the question arises, why just not give up the religion in the first place?!
My thought exactly.
If the Pope compromises the key tenent of the whole religion, do you even have one anymore?
The best book that combines science/evolution and philosophy is Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning if Life by Dan Dennett. A truly great book that everyone should read.
I'd say if there is an intelligent, all-powerful and all-loving God, surely He would assess the situation at the 'judgement day' and understand perfectly well that there have been people who, during their life time, did not find sufficient evidence to believe in His existence. At which point everything would be forgiven and atheists and agnostics would enter paradise together with all believers. You can't believe what you can't believe. And it makes no sense to punish someone for not believing in something that he or she simply cannot believe.
Hell is the grave, or death, nothing else. No torture, no eternal suffering. The reward is eternal life, the sentence is eternal death.
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. According to the word of God there will be no atheists or agnostics saved, because to be saved you must believe in Jesus Christ. He is the sacrifice which if you reject then you are doomed to eternal suffering. Not eternal burning just eternal non existence, to cut it short, you cease to exist. You will be like you were before you were born. Remember that time?
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What a book that is. Consciousness Explained too.
That one made lots of people angry. Which made it an even better book.
No book (on Abrahamic religions which are those that have the hell) say so.
Well, God's really rather unpleasant in that case then.
That was interesting. To be honest, the format of this is less of a debate and more of a harsh interview, where all the power is in interviewer's hands (due to him being the one asking the question with personal preparation), but in this case Dawkins doesn't look great too great in it. But Dawkins is certainly quite dogmatic in his atheism; and there are certainly better answers to questions about Stalin or Mao points (Dawkins kinda tried to formulate it but failed to do it properly). While technically those were atheist regimes, they were not — atheism was a word that was used in the politics of replacing a more traditional religion with basically religious belief in the regime, communism & personal cults (Stalin, Mao, Lenin etc.).
Agree.
I agree, there are also a lot of typical stupuid questions like "Can you prove Muhammed didn't fly to the moon on a winged horse?".
I thought that the journalist was actually quite good for the most part. Dawkins inability to put anything good to religion is as dogmatic as religion itself.
I like much better scientist Dawkins than anti-theist Dawkins.
Fair enough. But anyone who's postiny here in readable english presumeably had that chance to know Him.
On the flip side if god suddenly parts the skies and descent himself it wouldn't be called faith if you believe him
I agree tbh. I still feel these discussions sometimes lack nuance. On of my favourite books is The monk and the *********** where a highly prestrigious biologist becomes a monk in Vajyarana buddhism and debates his father who is a renowned atheist ***********.
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Had the 'chance to know Him'? What sort of ego does a creature that rewards or tortures other entities based on reasonable conclusions drawn? Such a tyrant should be overthrown.
We cannot. The sick feck is too powerful.
God is essentially Emperor Palpatine but more evil and more powerful.
Interestingly I cannot detect that aspect of 'believing' being crucial in the Old Testament narrative. Apart from Abraham packing his stuff, 'having faith' and 'following God to the land that He will show him', God is presented as someone who is constantly revealing Himself, either through the miraculous cloud of fire, or through His glorious presence in the tent of the congregation, or through the clear, unmistakable voice of Israel's prophets, etc... In one way or another God always revealed Himself.
The story completely changes with the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. Suddenly it became absolutely important to 'believe' in God although, post-ascension, there was no 'physical evidence' of His existence or His interactions. There's also a logical discrepancy in the New Testament in regard to Jesus' gradual revelation. According to the Gospels Jesus performed miracles so that people could recognize him as the promised Messiah. Jesus could have otherwise be taken for just another revolutionary Jew (like so many before and after him). It's implausible that God/ Jesus would not use the same method of interaction two thousand years later. Obviously there are hundreds of millions of people who do not believe in God because they simply cannot see any good evidence for his existence. So why wouldn't God/ Jesus want to reveal himself today, just like he did two thousand years ago? Back then Jesus' entire mission depended on people believing that he is who he claims to be. I don't understand why things should be different today, and why God would insist staying invisible and inaudible.
That's exactly the reason why Marcion wrote his 'Antithesis' in the second century AD. The nature of God in the Old Testament is fundamentally different from the nature of Jesus (and therefore the God that Jesus identifies with). Marcion came to the conclusion that those are two completely different gods and the the OT God is in no way compatible with the NT God.
Have you lost your faith @Mihajlovic? Remember you being very religious a few years ago.
I agree about the differences between the God of the Old Testament (and actually Quran too considering that he is a copycat of Jehowa) and Jesus. Jesus was a nice guy. But then, Jesus never claimed (or even thought) of being a God, he became a deity from people who didn't even know him.
I've been through some serious shit in the last few years which made me reconsider... everything.
Long story.
Yes, interestingly in the earliest, Synoptic Gospels, Jesus never claims to be divine, but in the Gospel of John, which was the latest to be written, that's all Jesus talks about...
I don't see how anyone can really have an open-minded, study a bit religions and still think that Jesus was a God. I mean, you can give him some prophethood (like Muslims do), or just a very nice knowledgable person with a lot of wisdom (like I personally believe), but the Godhood, and Holy Trinity and God sacrificing himself to himself in order to pay the punishment for the capital sin (which is as a small sin as something can be) is just total nonsense IMO. Those things came after Jesus and had not much to do with Jesus.
Thing is, the Christian values actually work well with Jesus as a human. The mumbo jumbo gets removed, while the lessons of living life as a nice person actually stand. Christianity without the dogma becomes a quite spiritual religion (not on the level of Buddhism), quite different to the other two big Abrahamic religions.
Sorry about all you've been through, it must have been tough.
I went through something similar, and went from religious to questioning everything. My observation was that religions are like bubbles, and only make sense when inside this bubble, when viewed through the prism of their own teachings. When observed from the outside, or when scrutinized by any logic or set of values except their own the 'holes in the plot' become too obvious to ignore.
Anyway, I don't want to intrude but I hope you're doing well and have found your peace and equilibrium.