Comic Genesis Forums

you've taught me nothing, don't give credit where it isn't due =P

Spiral Zer0 wrote:I did answer you, I don't.

and I'm okay with that, so please stop beating me into the ground.

We keep posting at the same time...

Ok... I missed that answer. So, you know god said it, but you don't know god said it, and that's ok with you?

Ok. I couldn't live like that, but ok.

And I'm absolutely not beating you into the ground, hon... I'm being very, very, very gentle with you, because you've been very... "don't beat me into the ground", let's say, at the slightest argument against your point of view in the past.

Argument with your point of view is not an attack on you... Quite the opposite.

Spiral Zer0 wrote:you've taught me nothing, don't give credit where it isn't due =P

I didn't say I had taught you anything. I said I had hoped to.

well not all hope is lost for me being ignorant, but look at it like this.

I don't care what you belive nor am I going to say that you are wrong for beliving what you want to. can you say the same?

No offence Spiral Zero, but why did you enter the conversation in a millitant manner then?

Goddamn, decent discussion has been missing around here just lately, and the first time something interesting gets going everyone starts taking it personally and picking up their petticoats and fleeing...

As I said before - It's an exchange of ideas, not a personal attack.

*returns to the bottom of the cliff in exasperation*

Spiral Zer0 wrote:well not all hope is lost for me being ignorant, but look at it like this.

I don't care what you belive nor am I going to say that you are wrong for beliving what you want to. can you say the same?

Why do you talk about that like it's a good thing...? And anyways, I should think they only reason you'd advertise that is because you DO care.

Honor wrote:
I'm in this conversation (the specific sub-thread with you, I mean) for one reason and one reason only... I love it when the light-bulb goes on over someone's head and they wake up from the long coma of a godless lack of faith to the warm sunlight of reality, our lord Jesus Christ.

It's the same reason some people love teaching... That look when someone "gets it"... When it clicks home, and they're finally awake... It's wonderful.

uc wat i did thar?
"Those who fight monsters should take care that they never become one. For when you stand and look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you." ~ Frederich Nietsche

Jetsetlemming wrote:

Honor wrote:
I'm in this conversation (the specific sub-thread with you, I mean) for one reason and one reason only... I love it when the light-bulb goes on over someone's head and they wake up from the long coma of a godless lack of faith to the warm sunlight of reality, our lord Jesus Christ.

It's the same reason some people love teaching... That look when someone "gets it"... When it clicks home, and they're finally awake... It's wonderful.

uc wat i did thar?
"Those who fight monsters should take care that they never become one. For when you stand and look long into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you." ~ Frederich Nietsche

That's a great quote and all, but not sharing your faith doesn't make someone else a monster. There are two groups of people (this would be the Arabs and the Jews) who have been trying that approach for something like 6000 years now, and they are no closer to understanding or mass conversion than they were when they started.

Honor's atheism doesn't make her evil just as Spiral's and your Christianity don't make you good. Its your actions, not your affiliations that determine that.

I still hold to the posit that you're all equally wrong, just as you're all equally right. Faith or lack there of it can only be right on an individual basis. If Spiral's faith causes him not to steal someone else's stereo when presented with the opportunity, can you truly say that he's a better person than Honor, who's belief in human centered compassion caused her to stop and help some drunken crack ho get to the hospital? Absolutely not.

Apply the same in the opposite direction, and its easy to see that just because some people got together and decided to rape, pillage, and murder their way across the African sub-continent in the name of Christ, doesn't mean that someone claiming to be Christian is going to do the same thing.

Finally, I think Linkara nailed it when he said that he takes comfort in knowing that something greater than him is looking out for his well-being, no matter how remote this something might be, and I think that's the ultimate hook for organized, monotheistic religion. You get all the mental safety and comfort of rules, regulations, and ceremony along with the sense of a final, ultimate authority. In essence, you get an ego driven construct of a super-parent who you can never disappoint.

Linkara wrote:How do you know that fictional beings don't have self-consciousness? ^_~ All I have to do is write down a thought bubble that says, "I'm aware of myself and the world I am in." for it to have it.

Does that mean that, in your philosophy, if you were to erase that thought bubble the character would cease to have self-consciousness? Wouldn't the character's self-consciousness be dependent, not on YOUR belief that the character has that awareness, but on the actual thought processes of the character? I would assume that the self-consciousness of a character had little or nothing to do with our awareness of his or her self-consciousness and all to do with its own existence, which we can never truly know nor prove. I may not believe in it, and you may, but we have no real means of backing up our beliefs.

I hope that made sense. Trying to put feelings into lucid arguments can be rather difficult at times ^_^

Oh, and Spiral, hon? Please don't take this the wrong way...I'm not trying to be insulting or picking at anyone in particular...I think that emotions have already become too heated all around...I just wanted to tell you that it can be rather difficult for me, at least, to focus on what you're saying when your writing lacks consistent capitalization and appears to have been written when you were responding with your gut reaction rather than giving yourself time to cool down and then coming back in order to respond to the points that have been made in a clear and logical manner, avoiding personal insults.

Squid, I'm not sure how you got that conclusion of what the quote meant, but I think you focused on the wrong part. The meaning of the quote was to become like your enemy. Honor, in railing against religon, and going on about zealots and those blinded by religon has become, in effect, an athiest missionary. A zealot to her non-faith. Her views and actions on the matter are equal to that of her opposites, campaigning to get people to join their faith. That's what I meant by the quote. I certainly wasn't calling anyone a monster.

As far as I'm concerned, nobody has any right to try and convert someone else's faith, be it to another religon, or athiesm. If someone is seeking to convert, help them, sure, but don't shove it down our throats, plzkthx.

Oh, and I'm not Christian. I quit that when I was 8.

Spiral Zer0 wrote:well not all hope is lost for me being ignorant, but look at it like this.

I don't care what you belive nor am I going to say that you are wrong for beliving what you want to. can you say the same?

Hell, no... And I hope I never can.

I -do- care what you believe, for several reasons...

1. You're a human being, and so your beliefs and actions help to make up the conglomerate averages and percentages of how many humans do such and such... Whatever such and such might be in any given conversation. Seems all too often, something happens that causes me to have to admit to myself that I'm part of this species... So I have a vested interest in making the world better for the species and the species better for itself and the world... It's the same reason I recycle and try to conserve energy and help people in need.

2. You're an American (um... I think. Sorry if I'm mistaken.) which means you're allowed - some would even say expected or obligated - to sit juries and vote... And while I apologize for the directness of this statement, it fucking flat out terrifies me how many voting, jury-serving American citizens take all thier cues from the Great and Powerful Oz, without having the mental faculties to figure out that it's just some guy behind the curtain, with his hand up thier ass, playing them like a retarded sock puppet.

3. I'm a homosexual. I was born homosexual, through no fault or effort of my own (although, if I had a choice, I'd still choose to be gay, or maybe bi.) I'm also intelligent and an intellectual, curious, inquisitive, skeptical and educated, and compassionate and socially minded... And therefore, politically liberal... Lots of Americans think I should be jailed or killed because of one or more of those traits... Because of what they believe. Because the evil bastards using Jesus as a ventriliquist's dummy tell them they should want me dead, and they don't have the intellectual wherewithall to doubt or question it.

4. Not to mention the fact that, in my opinion, leaving someone to the claws of those who would control them with the lies of religion is like leaving a drug addict to overdose, or leaving a drowning person to drown. It's cruel and heartless and uncivilized.

So, yeah... I fucking care what people believe. And I always will.

Jetsetlemming wrote: uc wat i did thar?

Yeah, I did... "I know you are, but what am I?" What a brilliant retort. Why didn't I think of it...?

Now one for you... Did you see the post where I posited my own observations (and those of much more notable scholars on the subject) on why religious zealots seek to convert others? Here's a hint for objective comparison... I have mountains of actual evidence on my side, so I don't need converts to shore up my flagging faith... I try to "convert" people in order to save the world from organized religion... Which is, without a doubt, the most destructive influence ever unleashed upon it by human beings.

Not to mention, you know, that the mathematical majority of religions say in thier religious doctrine that they want me dead.

Saying I don't have a right to try to dissuade people from thier faith is like saying someone with a gun pointed at them has no right to try to get the aggressor to not shoot them.

Oh... And one I forgot to address earlier, but wanted to...

Jetsetlemming wrote:...crack is, in all cases, bad for you. Christianity isn't, unless you believe you know it to be wrong and misguided and holding you back from some vague emo understanding of nothing.

See... There's the sad thing. There's almost never room for anything in a religious worldview, except that religious world view... "For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God..." So the religious folks always thnk that without thier particular brand of make-believe to fill up the universe, it must be a desperately bleak and lonely, empty place.

It's not.

Letting go of the voo-doo trappings of faith doesn't leave you with "an emo understanding of nothing"... It allows you to open your eyes and see the whole of the universe, in all it's glory and wonder, for what it is... Something too miraculous and beautiful and amazing to fit within the confines of any one set of make-believe stories.

There are more things in heaven and earth, dear Lemming, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Linkara wrote:In order to avoid any ugliness, I'll step in and be the punching bag in defense of Christianity. ^_~

Welcome, calm and rational voiced one. Why's it always got to be about punching bags and punching and hitting, though...?

Linkara wrote:Your right, Honor, those things that Spiral listed probably would've existed regardless of Christianity and could just as well spring out of any other religion. But for some people, they only learned those things as a result of their belief in Christianity. In the terms of the conversation and the question of "what good things from Christianity," we were discussing actual things that have happened, not the hypothetical what-ifs of things that would've resulted if Christianity hadn't been around. In this case, we listed off positive things that have come about as a result of Christianity or in some way due to association with it.

Probably would have...? Come on. You know better... To be more intellectually and historically honest, we'd have to go with "Did exist before christianity, do exist today outside of christianity (or any other faith or religion), and will continue to exist, with or without christianity (or any other faith or religion)."

Yes... Some people learned them from Christianity. And some people learned those things from the Girl Scouts... Some learned them from the Marine Corps... Some learned them in humanities classesd in college... Some learned them from *gasp!* their parents or thier community... And some learned them from the Lone Ranger Jr. Detective Posse club they joined through the radio drama they listened to every week, and the breakfast cereal they ate.

To say, therefore, that these things are "benefits of christianity" is like saying that mankind has milk and butter as a benefit of Shamrock Farms, Inc. Sure, that's one of many, many sources for those things... But they sure as hell didn't invent the stuff, and they don't have an exclusive patent on it. These things are easy to find, they come cheap or free from lots and lots of different places, and with just a tiny bit of effort, you can even make 'em all by yourself.

Linkara wrote: I don't deny that there are zealots out there, I just have a problem with the assumption that because there are crazies within the religion that the religion itself is worthless. I know that's not your argument, but it sometimes can feel that way.

I'm not saying religion is worthless, I'm saying it's inherantly "evil"*, having been formed and perpetrated for primarily malicious reasons, and that its net effect on humanity is and has been bad.

Let's say we have a father... He provides for his family, always puts food on the table and clothes on thier backs, provides a roof and a car and video games, takes them camping and fishing and to wally world every year...

But every now and then, he gets drunk and beats his wife, and rapes his daughter. Not at the same time, mind you... He just gets drunk sometimes. And other times, he beats his wife. Other times, little Sally gets it up the ass. And he tells his son to go out and beat up smaller kids in the neighborhood and rape the little girls... And the kid does it.

He does these things 'cause deep down, he's a mean, hateful little fucker. But, then, he feels bad about it the next day, so he buys them all ice cream and takes them to the fair, where he wins his daughter a stuffed animal, and tells his son to always be kind to others, and kisses his wife on the cheek and says "Gee, honey, you're the best!" Just like he does every time the other stuff happens.

Now, you're saying, all in all, he's a nice guy, and he deserves a pat on the back... Even though he has some bad moments. I'm saying he's a piece of shit, and his family would be better off without him. They can learn to make it on thier own... Mom can get a job, the kid can too, when he's old enough - or even now, after school and on weekends. I did it, so can he. They can take their own vacations and buy thier own stuffed animals and not have to worry about when dad will come home and beat the shit out of mom and rape little Sally again. Yes, he has his good moments, but they don't make forgivable the bad ones, and they can make it better without him.

That's classical human religion for you, in a nutshell.

squidflakes wrote:You get all the mental safety and comfort of rules, regulations, and ceremony along with the sense of a final, ultimate authority. In essence, you get an ego driven construct of a super-parent who you can never disappoint.

Have I told you lately how much it turns me on when you come into one of these debates, and lay down the elegant, eloquent, beautifully crafted wisdom smack-down...?

Although... Tell me, sexy... If it's 'ok' to ignore the world in all it's logic and reason, snuggle up next to this artificial parent construct, turn out the lights, and prepare to sleep the big sleep, why isn't it ok to ease into the nice warm euphoria of a heroine induced haze and die knowing that the world is a happy place with you at it's well-loved center?


*asterisk because, as the old-timers know, I don't believe in "good" and "evil" per se. The concepts themselves are idological/social constructs and are purely an artifact of time and place and point of view and social consensus.

Reesa-chan wrote:

Linkara wrote:How do you know that fictional beings don't have self-consciousness? ^_~ All I have to do is write down a thought bubble that says, "I'm aware of myself and the world I am in." for it to have it.

Does that mean that, in your philosophy, if you were to erase that thought bubble the character would cease to have self-consciousness? Wouldn't the character's self-consciousness be dependent, not on YOUR belief that the character has that awareness, but on the actual thought processes of the character? I would assume that the self-consciousness of a character had little or nothing to do with our awareness of his or her self-consciousness and all to do with its own existence, which we can never truly know nor prove. I may not believe in it, and you may, but we have no real means of backing up our beliefs.

I hope that made sense. Trying to put feelings into lucid arguments can be rather difficult at times ^_^

I'm a little confused by it, but I think I get it. ^_^ It's an interesting dilemma - if I erase that thought, does their consciousness continue to linger? I'd say yes, because even if the actual thought itself has been destroyed, knowledge of the thought still happens. I know, it's sounds rather corny, but the character and his thoughts continue to exist even if I did anything to them because it's been burned into memory that there was once a thought along those lines. Sure, I may not be able to think it up exactly the way it was, but in terms of life's continuity, there was a point at which that thought existed, it simply has been erased on the paper.

And yeah, we really have no way of backing up our beliefs, which I think can be helpful in itself. After all, as Douglas Adams put it, the entire idea behind faith is to NOT have proof of something and still believe it.

Linkara wrote:...After all, as Douglas Adams put it, the entire idea behind faith is to NOT have proof of something and still believe it.

Which, coincidentally enough, is also the whole idea behind schizophrenia.

Honor wrote: Letting go of the voo-doo trappings of faith doesn't leave you with "an emo understanding of nothing"... It allows you to open your eyes and see the whole of the universe, in all it's glory and wonder, for what it is... Something too miraculous and beautiful and amazing to fit within the confines of any one set of make-believe stories.

There are more things in heaven and earth, dear Lemming, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

See, the thing is, I see the glory and wonder of the universe WITHIN the idea of God, too. Think about it - there's science and rules of nature and physics and beauties and terrors and marvels and a wealth of ideas, subtle, gross, and magnificent. To me, the universe is God's masterpiece, the greatest work of art ever to behold. ^_^

Honor wrote:

Linkara wrote:In order to avoid any ugliness, I'll step in and be the punching bag in defense of Christianity. ^_~

Welcome, calm and rational voiced one. Why's it always got to be about punching bags and punching and hitting, though...?

Just in the sense that I'm defending Christianity in a "battle" of sorts, in this case a calm, reasonable debate. ^_^

Honor wrote:

Linkara wrote:Your right, Honor, those things that Spiral listed probably would've existed regardless of Christianity and could just as well spring out of any other religion. But for some people, they only learned those things as a result of their belief in Christianity. In the terms of the conversation and the question of "what good things from Christianity," we were discussing actual things that have happened, not the hypothetical what-ifs of things that would've resulted if Christianity hadn't been around. In this case, we listed off positive things that have come about as a result of Christianity or in some way due to association with it.

Probably would have...? Come on. You know better... To be more intellectually and historically honest, we'd have to go with "Did exist before christianity, do exist today outside of christianity (or any other faith or religion), and will continue to exist, with or without christianity (or any other faith or religion)."

Yes... Some people learned them from Christianity. And some people learned those things from the Girl Scouts... Some learned them from the Marine Corps... Some learned them in humanities classesd in college... Some learned them from *gasp!* their parents or thier community... And some learned them from the Lone Ranger Jr. Detective Posse club they joined through the radio drama they listened to every week, and the breakfast cereal they ate.

To say, therefore, that these things are "benefits of christianity" is like saying that mankind has milk and butter as a benefit of Shamrock Farms, Inc. Sure, that's one of many, many sources for those things... But they sure as hell didn't invent the stuff, and they don't have an exclusive patent on it. These things are easy to find, they come cheap or free from lots and lots of different places, and with just a tiny bit of effort, you can even make 'em all by yourself.

Maybe not invent them, but some people learned them through it. And, as I said, within the context of the initial question, since a lot of people did learn them through it, it certainly was a benefit.

Honor wrote:

Linkara wrote: I don't deny that there are zealots out there, I just have a problem with the assumption that because there are crazies within the religion that the religion itself is worthless. I know that's not your argument, but it sometimes can feel that way.

I'm not saying religion is worthless, I'm saying it's inherantly "evil"*, having been formed and perpetrated for primarily malicious reasons, and that its net effect on humanity is and has been bad.

Let's say we have a father... He provides for his family, always puts food on the table and clothes on thier backs, provides a roof and a car and video games, takes them camping and fishing and to wally world every year...

But every now and then, he gets drunk and beats his wife, and rapes his daughter. Not at the same time, mind you... He just gets drunk sometimes. And other times, he beats his wife. Other times, little Sally gets it up the ass. And he tells his son to go out and beat up smaller kids in the neighborhood and rape the little girls... And the kid does it.

He does these things 'cause deep down, he's a mean, hateful little fucker. But, then, he feels bad about it the next day, so he buys them all ice cream and takes them to the fair, where he wins his daughter a stuffed animal, and tells his son to always be kind to others, and kisses his wife on the cheek and says "Gee, honey, you're the best!" Just like he does every time the other stuff happens.

Now, you're saying, all in all, he's a nice guy, and he deserves a pat on the back... Even though he has some bad moments. I'm saying he's a piece of shit, and his family would be better off without him. They can learn to make it on thier own... Mom can get a job, the kid can too, when he's old enough - or even now, after school and on weekends. I did it, so can he. They can take their own vacations and buy thier own stuffed animals and not have to worry about when dad will come home and beat the shit out of mom and rape little Sally again. Yes, he has his good moments, but they don't make forgivable the bad ones, and they can make it better without him.

That's classical human religion for you, in a nutshell.

And I must vehemently disagree on that point. The good deeds he does after these terrible acts DO NOT make him an okay guy and deserving of a pat on the back. I wouldn't say that about him at all. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but am I correct in assuming that you're saying that the father in this case is God or religion? If it's God, then I disagree because I do not believe God does terrible things. Humans do terrible things to each other, either through their own evil or through the "intervention" of the devil. If the father was truly a good person, he'd give up drinking and do everything he could to ensure he never did such horrible things again, possibly even turning himself in to the police. I completely agree that his moments of goodness do not make up for hsi moments of badness (in fact, it's something I address in the first three issues of my webcomic. ^_~).

If he's supposed to represent religion, I must disagree, since the metaphor here refers to one person. Each religion is made up of countless individuals, each with their own opinions, biases, and viewpoints. The crazies, the ones who strap bombs to themselves and go into crowds or try to assassinate abortion clinic doctors don't represent all of religion nor their own faith. Christians who think that homosexuality is a sin do not represent my faith any more than Muslims who say that all the Jews should be exterminated represent Islam.

[quote="Honor]

squidflakes wrote:You get all the mental safety and comfort of rules, regulations, and ceremony along with the sense of a final, ultimate authority. In essence, you get an ego driven construct of a super-parent who you can never disappoint.

Have I told you lately how much it turns me on when you come into one of these debates, and lay down the elegant, eloquent, beautifully crafted wisdom smack-down...?

Although... Tell me, sexy... If it's 'ok' to ignore the world in all it's logic and reason, snuggle up next to this artificial parent construct, turn out the lights, and prepare to sleep the big sleep, why isn't it ok to ease into the nice warm euphoria of a heroine induced haze and die knowing that the world is a happy place with you at it's well-loved center?
[/quote]

It's not okay to ignore ALL the logic of the world, but the problem is that logic can sometimes lead to different conclusions. I've found logic in my own mind that says it makes more sense that the world was created by a being than it simply came into being through accident. You have a different opinion and do not hold the same logics that I have come to. Reason, sadly, cannot explain everything. Bear in mind, René Descartes, the father of Rationalism, believed in God and even went out of his way to explain through reason that God existed. ^_~

In the heroine thing, it's not okay for a few reasons. One, the drugs themselves are manufactured by people who have the express intent to do harm by selling a product that will eventually kill the user, be it through a physical death or by a loss of self (the fact that a drug can destroy someone's life through their addiction). Two, by using said drugs, it makes it difficult if not highly unlikely that they will be able to continue interacting with others of whom have taken that person to be a part of their existence, thus harming other people's lives, as well.

There's a third reason, as well, but it's only of my own opinion. I do not believe that people have a right to die. Be it immense pain, inability to cope with the world any longer, or even brave sacrifice, I simply do not believe that people have a right to die. To live, yes, but not to end life. I know, it doesn't really come in a rational response to the heroine thing, but it's of my own opinion and I'd hate myself for not stating it.

Honor wrote: *asterisk because, as the old-timers know, I don't believe in "good" and "evil" per se. The concepts themselves are idological/social constructs and are purely an artifact of time and place and point of view and social consensus.

And that's where we HIGHLY disagree, dear Honor, because I most certainly believe in good and evil and am writing an entire new philosophy based around the idea of moral absolutes of good and evil (with some grey areas sprinkled in for good effect, mind you. ^_~).

Honor wrote:

Linkara wrote:...After all, as Douglas Adams put it, the entire idea behind faith is to NOT have proof of something and still believe it.

Which, coincidentally enough, is also the whole idea behind schizophrenia.

I take offense (well, not really). Not all of us with schizotypal illnesses believe what we see. You just have to learn how to see and not believe.

Feel free to draw comparisons between religion and "seeing and not believing".

Linkara, if you are going to disown the fantatics, you need to change books. like it or not, the book regarded as holy by Christianity, as well as that regarded as holy by Judaism, or Islam (can't speak for others, ain't read 'em) have lengthy parts on killing the outsiders of to make way for the true kingdom of god. if it's holy, it's ALL holy, and if it's the word of god, it's ALL the word of god. even the nasty bits about butchering the infidel and raping his womenfolk so that their history is not a c omplete waste because the holiness of the rapist will overcome the unclean blood and the children will be of the proper faith.

Admittedly, Christianity and Islam have, whether they admit it or not, implicitly indicated that the big beard in the sky is capable of changing his/her/its transcendent mind, as the torah was supposed to be the word of god, and then there's the new books.

Christianity -cannot- seek to be judged independently of its fanatics until Testament III retocons (prolly misspelled) out the nasty parts, because according to your current Word of God, the fanatics are RIGHT.

Honor wrote:

Jetsetlemming wrote: uc wat i did thar?

Yeah, I did... "I know you are, but what am I?" What a brilliant retort. Why didn't I think of it...?

I'm not a zealot, I'm not driven by a single belief, and I have no intention of converting anyone to my way of thinking. I'm not a Christian, I've never talked anyone into being one, or suggested anyone be one, or any other religon or faith or worldview. It's not "I know you are, but what am I?", it's "You do realize you're acting just like those you oppose, right?"

Honor wrote: Now one for you... Did you see the post where I posited my own observations (and those of much more notable scholars on the subject) on why religious zealots seek to convert others? Here's a hint for objective comparison... I have mountains of actual evidence on my side, so I don't need converts to shore up my flagging faith... I try to "convert" people in order to save the world from organized religion... Which is, without a doubt, the most destructive influence ever unleashed upon it by human beings.

Bullshit. If you've got some evidence that God doesn't exist, and that all religon is false, I'd love to see it.

Honor wrote: Not to mention, you know, that the mathematical majority of religions say in thier religious doctrine that they want me dead.

Saying I don't have a right to try to dissuade people from thier faith is like saying someone with a gun pointed at them has no right to try to get the aggressor to not shoot them.

You have a serious persecution complex. Of the MAJOR religons, the one that actually matter to the world (ignoring the tiny third world faiths that don't extend beyond the local area they were born in), only Islam is used as a reason to kill non-believers. For all the others, it's either (sometimes) live and let live, or (mostly) convert.
That you see someone of faith as the equivilent of an agressor pointing a gun at you is very sad, Honor. Your days must be full of terror and paranoia.

Honor wrote: Oh... And one I forgot to address earlier, but wanted to...

Jetsetlemming wrote:...crack is, in all cases, bad for you. Christianity isn't, unless you believe you know it to be wrong and misguided and holding you back from some vague emo understanding of nothing.

See... There's the sad thing. There's almost never room for anything in a religious worldview, except that religious world view... "For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God..." So the religious folks always thnk that without thier particular brand of make-believe to fill up the universe, it must be a desperately bleak and lonely, empty place.

It's not.

Letting go of the voo-doo trappings of faith doesn't leave you with "an emo understanding of nothing"... It allows you to open your eyes and see the whole of the universe, in all it's glory and wonder, for what it is... Something too miraculous and beautiful and amazing to fit within the confines of any one set of make-believe stories.

There are more things in heaven and earth, dear Lemming, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

The secular view of the universe and life is tiny, detail-less, and severly lacking. There are a ton of things left unexplained, and unexplored. The very best it has to offer is everyday things we all see, and theories and ideas that should have been abandoned, or at least heavily revised, long ago, and would have if it weren't for the fear that admitting a weakness in an athiest belief would be admitting a religous one to be true. We know, scientifically, a good amount about or present world, some meaningful content on it's past, and very little beyond our lonely little planet.
On the other hand, the nice thing about religon is that, inspite it's declaration of concrete answers to the questions science can't answer, as we are living in the modern age, there's nothing at all to stop us from expanding our horizons regardless. If you were a christian, and went up to your pastor or priest and said "I believe in evolution!", you know how he'd react? By excommunicating you? Nope. Killing you? Throwing you in jail? Torturing you? Not those either.
He'd debate you. He'd talk to you reasonably. Christian leaders specifically study these issues, because they KNOW they're gonna be asked about them time and time again. Despite not only being religous, but leaders of a religous group, they still study scientific issues that, apparently, you believe all those of faith are blind to. Funny how that works.

Jetsetlemming wrote:only Islam is used as a reason to kill non-believers.

WHAT?

Dear lord, your comment actually gave me a nosebleed.

Jetsetlemming wrote: You have a serious persecution complex. Of the MAJOR religons, the one that actually matter to the world (ignoring the tiny third world faiths that don't extend beyond the local area they were born in), only Islam is used as a reason to kill non-believers. For all the others, it's either (sometimes) live and let live, or (mostly) convert.
That you see someone of faith as the equivilent of an agressor pointing a gun at you is very sad, Honor. Your days must be full of terror and paranoia.

Just going to go on the one point here.

Whether it is used as a reason to kill people, or just an excuse, is immaterial. There are people who think that Jesus wants them to kill all the fags. Who think god wants them to bomb abortion clinics. who think god wants them to kill anyone who wants to take away their guns. and frankly, i agree with Honor that organized religion, as it stands in the world today, is indeed creating and supporting those who would happily like to kill people like Honor, people like me, people like any number of us here in this forum, to 'save us from our sins' with the Holy Sacrament of Extreme Termination.

Do i think all 'people of faith' are doing this? no. but none of them speak up loudly enough to do anything about those who are. Talk to me about how religion is all goodness and light after someone with a 'Jesus hates babykillers' t-shirt tries to stab you while you're trying to pick up a prescription at the pharmacy next to the abortion clinic.

Bloody hell, how did I miss this thread?

Unfortunately, I think it's probably reached a point where any input from me would be of little use, so I shall just put forward two things:

1. I renew my wonderings as to where Tellner went off to, because he was always a good foil to Honor.

2. As I said in the last religion thread, what, three or four days ago, I refer all interested parties to South Park episodes 1012 and 1013, and this video.