Topic: Religulous (Read 32108 times)

Disposable Ninja · « **Reply #180 on:** December 01, 2008, 06:12:38 PM »

Well, Live is just Evil backwards.

Spaco · « **Reply #181 on:** December 01, 2008, 06:47:14 PM »

It all makes sense now...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VABSoHYQr6k

JDigital · « **Reply #182 on:** December 01, 2008, 07:48:13 PM »

Quote from: Arc on December 01, 2008, 04:49:38 PM

Great blog, or greatest blog?

Well, that's what they get for idolatry.

Arc · « **Reply #183 on:** December 02, 2008, 05:04:03 AM »

Their cries are louder than that of aftermath reactions to orphanage bombings.

Royal☭ · « **Reply #184 on:** December 02, 2008, 08:42:39 AM »

Kentucky Anti-Terror Law Requires God Be Acknowledged

Oh, Kentucky. You crazy coots, you.

Quote

State Rep. Tom Riner, a Southern Baptist minister, tucked the God provision into Homeland Security legislation as a floor amendment that lawmakers overwhelmingly approved two years ago.

...

"This is recognition that government alone cannot guarantee the perfect safety of the people of Kentucky," Riner said. "Government itself, apart from God, cannot close the security gap. The job is too big for government."

I'd like to take a moment to quote the first amendment, if I could:

Quote

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Brentai · « **Reply #185 on:** December 02, 2008, 09:03:27 AM »

Quote from: Constantine on December 02, 2008, 08:42:39 AM

Quote
"This is recognition that government alone cannot guarantee the perfect safety of the people of Kentucky," Riner said. "Government itself, apart from God, cannot close the security gap. The job is too big for government."

It'd be neat if Napolipolita closed down the DHS office with those exact words.

Arc · « **Reply #186 on:** December 15, 2008, 10:33:30 PM »

So I heard this thread needed more GodTube.

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=f5ddfcdde43d7c8fe40c

2:36 is wonderfully

Friday · « **Reply #187 on:** December 16, 2008, 12:04:57 AM »

I'm sorry, all I keep hearing is I am a soldier for chraist.

Who is this chraist and what faith does he represent?

Classic · « **Reply #188 on:** December 16, 2008, 12:24:04 AM »

Most memorable line, because it's the only one I could make out!

JDigital · « **Reply #189 on:** December 16, 2008, 05:42:34 AM »

Quote from: Friday on December 16, 2008, 12:04:57 AM

Who is this chraist and what faith does he represent?

I forget. Something about stubbornness and weapons.

EDIT: Now I remember; it's the one religion from Baldur's Gate. AH SURVE THE FLAMING FIUST

Kazz · « **Reply #190 on:** December 16, 2008, 05:48:22 AM »

that is my favorite thing, ever.

jsnlxndrlv · « **Reply #191 on:** February 12, 2009, 02:27:02 AM »

(cross-posted from a locked livejournal comments thread)

This is a conclusion based on anecdotal evidence, so don't take it seriously, but I suspect most believers achieve their conviction through familiarity with their own belief-system and one or more moments of personal elevation. People expect miracles from their religion: maybe not consciously, maybe they're cynics or convinced of the scientifically explicable nature of the world, but I think almost everybody is at least a little bit open to the idea of the impossible occurring. Then someone has a profound moment, a revelation--uplift, wonder, certainty and happiness in the midst of grief, a random response from a random stranger that was just the thing they needed to hear... and in their mind, they've felt the touch of the divine, and doubt simply falls away. It isn't that the other religions are more or less wrong than theirs; it's that their halting, hesitant faith in their own religion was ultimately rewarded. Even if I find their moment of divine inspiration lacking, the product of a pattern-seeking psyche assigning a religious label to the mundane miracles of the physical world, that doesn't make it any less significant for the person who actually experienced it, does it?

All of which is why I claim to be an atheist and an omnitheist. Does the historical truth of a religion matter, if spirituality and the socio-economic network a church provides is such a positive force in so many peoples' lives? If there is a God that created the world, then it didn't just write the Bible or the Torah or Joseph Smith's golden plates, but rather every action or thought of every living being and all the inanimate matter in the universe. God's message to its creation is its creation, and I can see my own self-consciousness as an argument either for or against the deliberate intentionality of such a message. We're a pattern-seeking life-form, it's true, but is life improved or worsened by rejecting the search? Do the options have to be mutually exclusive?

Mothra · « **Reply #192 on:** May 25, 2009, 08:26:09 AM »

Christianity WOW!

King Klown · « **Reply #193 on:** May 25, 2009, 09:49:55 AM »

Quote from: Kabbage on May 25, 2009, 08:26:09 AM

Christianity WOW!

Mongrel · « **Reply #194 on:** May 25, 2009, 10:16:46 AM »

Vowwww of ceeeeelibacyyyyyy. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

Well, that works okay with priests, right?

Mothra · « **Reply #195 on:** May 25, 2009, 09:10:21 PM »

I know you've probably been over a lot of this before, but if you'll bear with me:

Quote from: Newbie on February 12, 2009, 02:27:02 AM

All of which is why I claim to be an atheist and an omnitheist. Does the historical truth of a religion matter, if spirituality and the socio-economic network a church provides is such a positive force in so many peoples' lives?

True, of course, but if it's almost impossible that the reality something like Christianity offers could exist under a rational god, and letting the church do what it does is allowing millions to grow up under a fundamentally false, limiting understanding of our world. Comforting, yeah, but it's a problem when the world doesn't line up with their beliefs and they're forced to start making up their own fiction to make sense. It's just going to be a huge source of frustration for believers and non-believers can't even agree on how the universe likely works, much less what the rules are. I don't think their ease of mind is worth limiting what I'm allowed to do, and I don't really feel I'm being selfish for feeling like that.

Quote from: Newbie on February 12, 2009, 02:27:02 AM

I can see my own self-consciousness as an argument either for or against the deliberate intentionality of such a message. We're a pattern-seeking life-form, it's true, but is life improved or worsened by rejecting the search? Do the options have to be mutually exclusive?

It's fine if the search actually continues, not grinding to a halt at a false unquestionable, static "answer" like the one religion offers. I'm all for continuing the explore the pervasive laws that nature uses to organize itself - stuff like six degrees of separation, identifying human/animal sociological patterns, bettering our understanding of how our brains function and associate - and I'm open to the possibility that the universe does work under some sort of Foundation-like pattern, or even the efforts of a god, but we don't really have any evidence to support any of that just yet. To believe that a pattern exists when it's possible, if not likely, one doesn't (or just works differently than the one something like religion promotes), is an act of self-delusion that's just setting them up for frustration. At worst, it's affecting their judgment, narrowing their perspective, making them decide and act in a certain way that feels in line with the vague unexplainable flow of life they want to be a part of.

sei · « **Reply #196 on:** February 11, 2010, 01:11:49 PM »

Quote from: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100210/full/news.2010.66.html

The authors pinpointed two parts of the brain that, when damaged, led to increases in spirituality: the left inferior parietal lobe and the right angular gyrus. These areas at the back of the brain are involved in how we perceive our bodies in spatial relation to the external world. The authors of the study in the journal Neuron, say that their findings support the connection between mystic experiences and feeling detached from the body.
...
Previous studies have shown that a broad network of frontal and parietal brain regions underlies religious beliefs. But spirituality does not seem to involve exactly the same regions of the brain as religion.

Thad · « **Reply #197 on:** February 08, 2011, 04:11:58 PM »

Lawrence Wright has a fucking amazing piece on Scientology in The New Yorker. It's written around Paul Haggis, the guy who wrote Million Dollar Baby and Crash, and who recently left the church after 34 years over its support of Prop 8.

It's long but it's worth the time to read it. Extremely thorough and remarkably evenhanded; he reports numerous detractors' accusations against the church but also gives the church an opportunity to defend itself -- he notes that most of the accusations ARE hearsay by people who, by their nature, want to damage and discredit the church, but on the other hand, the church's constant denials aren't exactly convincing.

It's also even-handed in looking at the positives and negatives of the church -- Haggis himself notes that while he always thought the Xenu story was completely nuts, he thought the counseling really helped him, and indeed many of the people who've left and criticized the church still practice some version of its teachings.

None of which is to say it pulls punches. Haggis gets the last word, and that word is "cult". Wright does a truly admirable job presenting the facts as well as the claims of both sides; he leaves the reader to draw his own conclusions, but I know what conclusions I drew from it and I think most people reading it would draw similar ones.

Thad · « **Reply #198 on:** November 02, 2011, 01:38:00 PM »

Penn Jillette, challenged by Glenn Beck, has put together 10 Commandments for Atheists. I think they're pretty good!

Kashan · « **Reply #199 on:** November 02, 2011, 06:55:29 PM »

Pretty good, though this idea has been around before. It's also not very hard to do better than the 10 commandments, I'm honestly baffled by the obsession some Christian groups have with them. 4 of the commandments are pretty much strictly required for a functioning society (murder, theft, lying, and adultery) and another 2 are just practical (honor your parents and don't covet) which means there are really only 4 commandments that are saying anything unique or interesting. Of the other 4 commandments, keep the sabbath kind of stands on its own. Really though nobody actually does that or values it even among evangelicals, so how important can it be? The last 3 commandments are all variants on honoring god (don't take the lord's name in vain, no false idols, I am the lord your god).

It's also notable that other than "honor thy mother and father" and "keep the Sabbath" the commandants are strictly proscriptive, which I consider a weaker form of moral imperative and which is in my opinion counter to thrust of Christianity as a separate religion from Judaism. I think one of the notable things about Christianity compared to other religions around at the time it arose is that it told you what you should do in very open terms (Love the lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. Love your neighbor as yourself.) rather than what you shouldn't do in very specific terms.

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Author Topic: Religulous (Read 32108 times)