Im in off season withdrawal... its not nice. Ive only got Kermodes Film reviews to see me thru now

religious or not, idiots are everywhere.

non deux non deux non deux *clap clap*

I wouldn't call the "devil" a good guy.
To me in most cases religion is hope that people lean on when they need it most.

all right i give, you now have permmision to make fun of me and say how i am a crazy shit head or whatever if u feel the need to say it in order to glorify your gods today.
But i did not once insult any of you all i said what was my beliefs and that your beileifs were wrong and it offended almost all of you and you did the classic reaction of relgois people and reply back with anger. so maybe there is a god but i still dont trust organised relgion or most relgios people. thats my conclusion thanks for some insight

all you said was that everyones beliefs were wrong... shit... thank god for irony eh.

i said your beliefs were wrong and you said mine were wrong and the diffence was most of you replyed with anger

How did you not insult us? You just said it there yourself, you said our beliefs are wrong. How can you not expect a degree of hostility?

disagreeing with someone is totaly differnt then insulting someone

I think saying someone's beliefs are flat out wrong is highly disrespectful, and I'd class it as an insult.

well i'm sorry if that insulted you but thats still my opinon

I called you a bellend because you used the word "cult" as it is a part of my username, despite the fact id made no references to cults in any way shape or form. I imagine you are drunk, even more so than me.

selloutloser isn't getting attention at home, hoe nice that everyone here are looking at him and all.

next time, he'll probably spill spaghetti over his head.

Well, it is usually necessary for one to completely doubt the existence of God before one ever truly believes, and this is integral to the hypocrisy among religious believers.
Religious "believers," by and large, are essentially culturally herded via fearmongering into one form of institutional, dogmatic religious thought or another.
As Socrates reminds, "all philosophy begins with doubt."

i did not even realize your name had cult in it and i am not drunk

i'm high

Okay, I accept your apology. I don't like arguing with people on this board, but you got me all riled up there.

i agree with this.

The only fact sellouteater is "I think, therefor I exist." That is all anyone can be sure of.

Actually, when I think about it I don't think the devil is a good guy. . . because good and bad are constructs of the human mind. It so happens when you think about it the devil looks to be a good guy, but when I think about it I may think differently.

But happened to be a major player in the holocaust, kennedy's assassination, jesus's death, the russian revolution (including the execution of the Czar) and a bunch of other stuff according to the Rolling Stones.

The concept of Devil = bad and God = good can't be looked at so lightly. Moral boundaries and good and evil are constructs of the mind rationalizing things and restricted to societies. Who questions the morality of a predatory animal besides really dumb vegans? The Devil and God are both beings that have created their own moral codes, as any being can do. The difference between the Devil's and God's interaction with mankind is that God encourages people to adhere to their personal moral codes, where the Devil encourages a person to break their moral codes. And it is important to say break and not reshape or change. Because if you change your moral codes to allow you to kill someone and you do kill someone, you do not suffer from it. But if you believe it is wrong to kill someone and you do, you experience much suffering. The devil would be the master manipulator.

But you may argue, "but Julian, didn't God instruct Abraham to sacrifice his only son?" To which I'd argue that it demonstrates Abraham working in his own moral code, being a Knight of Faith towards God's ultimate benevolance and break the common code of morals.

You could argue that satan encourages people to be Knights of Faith too. Well if you stand by that, I'd say he encourages them to be faitful to self-indulgence. Where as God would encourage self-fulfillment.

Considering the flood, the plagues of egypt, etc. : God like any individual is not restricted by some natural moral code. (a natural moral codes is a fabrication and complete bunk) in a much larger view of things that God would have, since the soul is immortal, death would be rather unmeaningful in the infinite existence of that soul and would bring them great peace. From a human position, people suffer through death, families miss relatives, etc. But from an omnisicient, infinite, assumed benevolant god POV, death isn't all that bad and is part of the order of the world.

I'm not saying satan is bad, and god is good, I'm just looking into them a bit instead of making face value judgments.
Anyone intending to manipulate you is charming.

Religion is what you do with it. Nothing is inherently evil.

Once again being a "good person" is very much a matter of opinion, as well as lies and truth. And saviors do have a lot to do with a person's desire to do good. Everyone has a savior. That savior is meaning. It is what keeps people going, keeps them at their futile effort to push a large boulder up an infinitely steep mountain. We all give our meaningless lives meaning to make it worth living for our feeble intellect. Some people do it by religion, others prescribe to other things. Music is one man's savior, Jesus another's.


ummm, that is just people in general


I don't see how anyone can consider Jesus Christ to be an egotistical liar. A believer obviously wouldn't, but it isn't logically sound for a nonbeliever to believe Christ to be a liar. If you believe that the resurrection and the conception of Christ were fabrications, why would you believe the quotes from him aren't? There isn't like some roman newspaper saying "Jesus of Nazareth claims he is the son of God! Executed! But says he will rise from the dead!" The only quotes we have from him are from one source- religious texts, and if you have no faith in that source, passing judgement upon him is very presumptuous.

Wake up to your undeniable infallible truth? Truth. Ha.

teehee

I am not a religious person, and that is my choice, but if people want to be involved with god or some other entity, that is their choice. And they are not wrong as I am not wrong for having this view on religion. Some people may disagree with me, but that is them. Only a few go to incredible lenghts to be maniacs, not everyone. I know so many nice people who are my friends and they are all very religious, they are not fanatics going and trying to convert everyone by force. Sorry sellouteater but you are wrong.

true, true.

i was going to rip this to shreds, but i think an "lol" will suffice.

i bet your world would be shattered if you found out that regina spektor was a dedicated roman catholic, huh?

beautiful.

"if god did not exist, man would find it neccessary to create him"

I can agree with this. I remember a long time ago when I was a teenager who went to a youth group and church, there were only 2-3 people who I could really talk to. One of them was the pastor who you know actually went through college and studied theology and greek and philosophy and was decently well-read. Most of the other people there I considered idiots.

But then again, most of the people I've met I've considered an idiot at one time or another. I even think I'm an idiot sometimes.

the thread title reminded me this
http://youtube.com/watch?v=4nRNYG_xM2U

Hey thread starter, right on.

you are right

you come across as pretty ignorant on this thread, to be honest.
firstly, of course there are holes in religion just as there are holes in everything if you want there to be. everybody knows that, and you pointing it out is just superfluous.

what you are forgetting, however, is that the drive to construct a god (or gods) is a completely natural and essentially instinctive thing for humans to do.
as a species we are desperate for answers and definitive explanations, and, as a society, we manifest explanations to satisfy ourselves. this has been going on since the beginning of humankind. it is a necessity for society. the need for a God/Gods to worship, appease, justify and project ourselves onto is instinctive. therefore, incoherant arguments that demean religion for what has happened as an (indirect) result of it is really quite meaningless and can be ignored on the basis that there is nothing anybody can do to stop it. if the need for a God had never existed humans would create other ways to justify persecuting each other.
it's not religion to blame, but humans.

I would say that I'm spiritual, but not religious. I think that everyone is going to experience spirituality different and so most major religions have no appeal to me.

that said....I think it's poor form to belittle other's beliefs. I don't pretend to have all the answers.

I get into arguements with my wife's anti-christian attitudes all the time. her logic fails her and becomes hypocracy the moment she starts pushing her lack of faith onto others. in the "bible-belt" of america, quite a few people are hyper-evangelistic and this turns her off.

I insist that her vehement disbelief is no better / different than what she receives from "the other side".

it all boils down to lack of tolerance, and THAT is against my religion (whatever that is).

where???

--


about the debate that seemingly ensued:

i hope i did not offend anyone with my public statement of religious disbelief. i was only trying to point out to sellout eater, who apparently was high while writing all his rants, that it's a bit absurd to be an atheist who believes in satan. (if that is in fact what he did-- frankly i could not understand his post.)

now, i am sure if someone came out in public & said "i just found god and my life is so much better for it", people would come out of the woodwork to congratulate them and express their support. so i don't see why we can't do the same when someone finds "there is no god." same deal, goes both ways.

just a couple of points to bring up for general discussion:

i was raised catholic, and later rejected christianity in general, i have to say i'm ambivalent about the role of religion in human life. i also went to school to study science (and left it for other pastures but likes to keep current on the subject).

from this my own perspective, i am very ambivalent about the role of religion; i probably lean towards the negative perspective, and here is why:

i agree with racehorse that there is a religious instinct. is it a function of the cognitive system to deal with the unknown, or with information overload? is it some kind of organ/function that responds to the existence of something real like the eye evolved as a response to light? i have no idea, and though i lean towards the former, some other days i consider the latter as a possibility.

like all instincts, i respect mine, and i have to say there is a "spiritual" dimension to my life, as there is to all human lives, because we all have the religious instinct. i have mine but i don't like to discuss it in public.

however necessary or beneficial the religious instinct, it can certainly be misused, exploited, as perverted, just like other instincts-- sex, hunger, the need to belong to a group, whatever. and just like our hunger instinct has transformed the world into a giant fast-food factory, i fear that our religious instinct has been exploited for milennia by charlatans, social manipulators, fanatics, extremists, and sociopaths.

another thing i have to say: humans are also the bearers of a moral instinct. this moral instinct is conflated with the religious instinct, but do not for a second think that without religion we'd descend to the realm of beasts. we can be beasts with or without religion, often we become beasts with the help of religion-- the more rigid and authoritarian the sytem, the greatest its capacity for atrocities.

in general, what i detest about religion is the social control aspect (some would say it's a good, "civilizing" force), and the authoritarian aspect that accompanies it, which makes people prone to atrocities and barbarity "in the name of god". and beyond that, the rigidity of repressive religious moral codes that are fundamentally against life and nature and cause more pain than they are meant to relieve. i think that religion can be a very negative force also that keeps people from adapting to the future. and as we know, adaptation is esssential for our survival.

there are some aspects of some religions that i like, but currently i can't find one thatallows me to agree wholeheartely with it.

these are just some general outlines that i'd be happy to discuss in greater detail later.

Well, we all know you'll be in the 9th circle !@#$%!. So he'll see you on his way to the 3rd or 4th. (I'm just going by his name, 3rd is for gluttons, 4th is for those consumed by material goods- sellouts)

I just hate lies/hypocrisy. religion does not exist without a core of lies/hypocrisy which the follower is supposed to believe is true. they call it dogma.

I am ANTI-THEIST.

I believe the world would be a better place with NO rleigion or spirituality of any kind. I call ALL of it SUPERSTITION.

Abuse of religion for selfish pursuits no more invalidates religion than drunk driving invalidates transportation or rape and incest invalidate lovemaking.

You need to wake up and separate the apples from the oranges.

Sasha Grey Said That She Worshipped Cock

But She's An Existentialist!

oh I don't know about that, how about viruses genetically engineered to only infect specific ethnic groups?

How about child rape? Isn't that inherently evil? No? ok, what about BABY RAPE?

I'd say religion is all about social control and preservation of the State.

the satan thing didnt mean anything i was just baked, but i am an atheist. We could argue about relgion for hours and get no where so i'm done with my rants for now.

the Nazis were christians, wholly supported by the Holy Roman Catholic Church. I get so upset when revisionists talk about how they were godless atheists. While the personal relgious beliefs of der Fuhrer are in question, the official belief of the National Socialist party was Roman catholicism.

The so called Soviet athiests actually used atheism to hide behind as they wrested power from the Russian Orthodox Church.

I would venture to bet that maybe 40% of all US Presidents are either agnostics or outright atheists, but to say so in the USA is a political death wish.

Why? Most religions are based upon good manners and good thoughts. I don't mind people who believe in god it's their choice and I just think it's rubbish and choose not to believe in it.

Hip Priest and luxinterior said the best things on this thread, and that's from my entirely atheist point of view. Don't like God? Don't bother with him, then. I respect one's belief for as long they respect mine, and as I posted on another thread, I have a parent who's a devoted catholic and a fantastic person, parent or not.