Religion

People have the right, legally and morally, to believe in crap and fairy tales. But it's still crap and fairy tales. Watch the George Carlin video again. There really ain't more to say.

 

Carp? I believe in Carp! Carp and turtles!

Oh, never mind.

 

Why do you insist on calling others beliefs, as 'crap and fairy tales'? I am somewhat surprised at that. It indicates a vile hatred, that seems beneath you.

 

Have you read The God Delusion? Or The End of Faith? Both Dawkins and Harris point out that if you talk nonsense in any other realm of discourse, I can call it nonsense and it's acceptable to call out your nonsense; but if you talk nonsense and call it religion, I'm supposed to just sit quietly and accept that "everyone has the right to their beliefs."

If you say that we all need to start driving on the left because the right-hand side of the street is full of invisible unicorns, I can call you a maniac for advocating a dangerous, even suicidal, plan of action based on a delusion which is logically impossible (there cannot be unicorns always and only on the left side) and for which there is no evidence.

But if you say that the world was created before the Sumarians invented beer by a guy who loves us so much that he'll send us to everlasting torture if we make the honest mistake of believing the "wrong" religion, why am I supposed to respect that "belief" any more than the one about unicorns on the left???

All my life I've been insulted and reviled by people advocating dangerous and hateful beliefs, and told I must respect their beliefs because those beliefs are called "religion."

I'm through keeping my mouth shut when people clothe crap in the uniform of religion.

I respect you very much as a good and honest and decent person who preaches in the wilderness trying to make religion humane (an impossible task because religion is, at its core, intolerant). I have said this before and it remains my sincere attitude. You are a good man and I like you, TJ. When you tell people to be nice to each other, I'm with you. But when you start fouling your humane ethics with crap about a guy in the sky, I'll call it crap.

Speaking of carp, there's a story about cod:

A man built his house on pylons over the water, and the little fishes nibbled away at the wood until finally the pylons gave way and the house fell into the bay. The insurance company refused to pay off, asserting that it was "an act of cod."

I saw a turtle while diving in Belize. We were hanging out at 15 feet for 3 minutes for our safety stop on the way up, when an enormous, beautiful sea turtle swam by close enough to have a great view of it. Turtles are good. Religions are bad.

 

Just because people believe in something does not make it universally good or true. Danial is not expressing vile hatred, he is simply making a statement of fact. Perhaps he could be a bit more diplomatic, but it wouldn't change the underlying truth. Tiptoeing around other people's misguided ideas is part of what got us into our country's current state of mess. Political correctness demands we politely allow every nut case equal time to express obviously crazy ideas. When did we start thinking this was a good idea? You see it all of the time on the news, where "fair and balanced" reporting consists of giving equal time to ideas and opinions that should never see the light of day. I don't get it.

Tom

 

Yes I have.

What bothers me, from both sides of the fence, is when anyone calls another persons beliefs, or lack of beliefs, as nonsense. I would say, that everyone is entitled to their own belief. Or none. I for one, don't really care if you believe in God, or the Spaghetti monster, or whatever. And I would say, that unless I made a mistake in the past, I have never intentionally knocked another one's beliefs on this forum. And for the record, I don't do that off the forum. I am not one that will be a hypocrite on this.
If you want to talk about the great things the color Red has done, and I want to talk about the great things Blue has done, I see no reason to call the other side as having nonsense beliefs.

What baffles me, time and time again, is that no one, not one person ever, living or dead, has any first hand knowledge of the after life, if thereis one, if there is nothing...it's all a crap shoot. Daniel my brother, you are older then me. And I respect that. I will never call your lack of faith, or whatever you wish to call it, as nonsense. It would not be the right thing to do.

Well, since I don't say that, I can not respond. As I am a simple follower of Christ, and all I represent, is His positive message of peace and love and understanding, that is all I am willing to debate on. I will always say that all the rest, the part about God being vengeful and crap, that was made up by man, to scare early man into following a religion, so as to fill the pockets of early corrupt religious leaders. Heck, that happens today.

I for one, am fully prepared to defend the fact that the Man I know, Christ, was a forgiving loving man, who spoke in a time of unrest, offering a simple plan of peace, that was killed for it.

If you and I were to sit down over a drink, cola, coffee, whatever, and talked, you would see that I am not a typical 'Christian' or preacher at all. I do read the Bible, and I do find some truth in it, but for the most part, it's rubbish, that was invented by man, and needs to have a serious editing party to it. If I was to write a Bible, I can guarantee, I would simplify things a great deal; I would leave out the parts that contradict the others.

I for one, can only offer my sympathies to that. I have had my fair share of hatred, from my fellow 'Christians', including viable death threats. I also have had people who are atheists, give me death threats. I have got it from both sides. I was sodomized by a Catholic Priest when I was younger. I was physically beaten to a pulp by a team of 'Christian' ministers. In all these cases, I have had to forgive them, and move on. I am trying, in all honesty, to be that one man of change. I do believe that if I can be like Christ, that somehow, someday, this world can change for the better. I believe that if everyone was to forgive, and move on, this world could suddenly become the planet that it was meant to be,which is a peaceful, loving planet.

And I know, that just by saying that, I will be ridiculed, but that is the choice I have made.

Myself, I wish that you could see how much further kindness would go, but it's not for me to change how you see others. That is up to you to see, that is up to you to change. I also, BTW, am tired of people using religion to cover over their sinful ways. It bothers me.

So be it, I'm afraid.

 

TJ: For all the above I deeply respect you, as a person, as I have often said. Your flavor of religion is the very liberal religion that we once thought was "good" because it rejects all the cruelty in the Bible and focuses on the message to be nice to each other.

And yet your very use of the descriptor "Christ" to refer to Jesus shows that you accept the whole business of a god, for which there is not and never has been the slightest shred of evidence: something people believe for no other reason than because people believed it thousands of years ago, people who understood nothing about the world around them, and yet we're supposed to regard them as authorities, simply because they invented a fantasy for which there can be no disproof?

Harris explains far better than I can (since he wrote a whole book and I'm writing one post, and he's more intelligent and a better writer than I am) why these sorts of beliefs, even the liberal and tolerant ones, are so disastrous to the survival of humanity, and why even the liberal beliefs lead to so much unnecessary suffering.

It is for this reason that while deeply respecting you as a person for your behavior and your lifestyle, I will argue fervently against irrational beliefs. Perhaps "nonsense" is not the most diplomatic word to use. But it is the word that best describes the beliefs that George Carlin so brilliantly ridicules.

When beliefs are based solely upon a book which has been shown to be wrong on every particular for which there is any evidence at all, then those beliefs make no sense: they are by definition nonsense. And when they lead to unnecessary suffering, a stronger word is warranted: they are crap. You have been the victim of religion: violated, abused, beaten by people motivated by nonsensical beliefs. It makes no sense for you to cling to the same beliefs that motivated their abuse of you. In fact, it is a testament to the pathology of religion, when the victims of religion cling so fervently to the very religion that has caused them so much suffering. It is a pattern we see over and over. It is my wish that this pattern be broken.

 

cool, can i join in? is this a new cult here?

 

Yes you may. We are New Reformed Druids. We follow the same beliefs as other Druids, but we worship small shrubs.

Tom

 

Or are you the Knights of Ni???

 

Or perhaps the Knights Who Say "Ekke Ekke Ekke Ekke Ptang Zoo Boing"....

 

Not me. I'm a Pastafarian. There is no god but the Flying Spaghetti Monster and Bobby Henderson is its prophet, even though he got it wrong about pirates being the chosen people.

 

Do not worship the false small shrub prophets. You must only worship the Giant Sequoia.

Actually, there is a lot to be said for being a Sun worshiper.



http://www.flickr.com/photos/16976782@N07/1912513249/in/set-72157602999000086/

 

Carlin seems to rate it.

 

This thread makes me smile. "Bring me a shrubbery!"

Tom

 

Couldn't we tempt you with Turtle or Carp worship?
Maybe Mongolian Frog Worship? Kermit is the prophet.

You wouldn't have to give up receiving abuse for your beliefs

THE UNCLEAN FROGS OF REVELATION

Shrubs are just too stationary , besides the christians are always setting them on fire.

And spaghetti? puuuleese! How can you worship something that doesn't have a backbone!

 

I have emphasized a few parts I want to ask you about.

TJ:

You have said on various occasions that you believe in "Christ" (a title often given to Jesus, indicating that he is considered to be the savior of humankind) and that you believe in god, and that you believe that both Jesus and god are kind and loving and well-intentioned towards humankind.

But you have also said that you regard the Bible (which for most Christians is the source of their beliefs) as mostly rubbish.

I would therefore like to ask you, in all sincerity, where do you draw your beliefs from?

Do you draw them from the same Bible that you regard as mostly rubbish, and if so, how do you determine which parts are legitimate and which are not?

Do you feel that you have a direct revelation of some sort, which was not granted to the preachers who beat you up for your beliefs?

Do you have some other source of revelation, or written authority you have recourse to?

I'd ask this question of any Jew, Muslim, or Christian who is not a fundamentalist. The fundies, of course, simply believe in the literal and inerrant truth of every word of their chosen scripture. But liberals reject the more cruel and inhumane parts of scripture, as well as those parts which contradict what we've learned about the world through science. They generally retain only those beliefs which they are confident cannot ever be proved or disproved, and for which there cannot ever be any evidence. It is very odd, however, to accept as truth the untestable pronouncements of a book which contradicts everything we actually do know about the world, while rejecting everything in the book which is testable and has therefore been thoroughly debunked.

I ask you because you are an honest man, and probably the most devout liberal Christian among the regular posters in Fred's. (And in case it's not obvious, these questions have been in part inspired by Sam Harris.)

 

Does a turtle or a carp promise a beer volcano in heaven? Does a turtle or carp offer you an unconditional god-back guarantee? How could a turtle or a carp prevent us from all floating off into space, when they have no noodly appendages with which to press down on us?

How can we worship the FSM? Well, we don't actually worship it, really. We believe in it and have faith in the truth of its creation, and we eat spaghetti and drink beer as a sort of acknowledgment of it. But I don't really worship the FSM. The eight I'd-Really-Rather-You-Didn't's never command us to worship the FSM. They don't actually command us to do anything, which is one of the nice things about being a Pastafarian. Would a turtle or a carp be satisfied giving its believers eight I'd-Really-Rather-You-Didn't's and leave it at that? I doubt it! The FSM is the only young-earth creator-god that imposes no moral requirements on its believers whatsoever. :bounce: