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Religion does not do questioning. It would last 24 hours if it did. It leaves the questioning to science.
Hence religion is intrinsically intellectually dishonest.
It would be a right kerfuffle having to type it all out again.
I wasn't aware you had typed it out in the first place? Could you refer me to the date and time when you posted said evidence or are you saying that it was lost due to the apparent 'glitch'?
If it's a case of the latter sorry to be a pain but maybe we could implore you to type it out again kerfuffle notwithstanding? You're implying you've got a whole sheaf of evidence proving the existence of God so kerfuffle or not it's kind of a biggie to share it with the world don't you think?
Copy/paste surely? But no it didn't happen. You did not type any evidence. Even using strictly the Bible as reference you did not exactly gave us evidence that Jesus is the Messiah mentioned or that what's in the NT is internally consistent with the OT.
???
Oh right I see you've just been having a wind up the whole time and don't actually believe in this bollocks!
For a minute there I thought you actually believed in talking snakes - hands up you got me there old son.
I have faith and personal experience, that is evidence enough for me.
We can see the emotionality in daily discussions on this forum as well. It's just humans being human.
So ultimately using the rational or intellectual hammer to beat religious folk about the head with isn't going to solve anything. That's really not what drives the belief in the first place. I see it as a means for comfort and structure in an uncertain and sometimes difficult existence. One of just many avenues open to us of course, but also one that has become institutionalized to a degree and therefore easier to grasp.
At the end of the day whether this becomes dangerous or not comes down to how strongly one believes in anything (whether it be religion, doctrines, philosophies or anything else). Is there a degree of rigidity to one's opinion, or is it pliable? Open to conflicting input? I suppose some of that comes down to what kind of person and how emotionally (and intellectually) mature one is. That's why certain things aren't taught to kids at an early age after all - because they aren't able to make sense or grasp the nuances - to accept reality from fiction.
I think I've said this before, but to me religion is like love. It really can't be explained, but it serves to comfort the soul. If one tries to analyze love, one is in for a world of hurt, and the same applies to religion. Love, when obsessive, can become dangerous too. Can one live without either? Absolutely, but there is an argument to be made that both offer a richer existence, within reason.
Just don't get too fundamental about it and everything will be fine. At the end of the day at least try to be rational when you can.
I think we'd get along very well.
It’s true! I was there when Draggers had his vision. A thing of beauty
Well faith is there very opposite of evidence so we're all ears for your personal experience. Are we to presume a St Bernadette style visitation? I'm guessing there were no witnesses?
Comfort blankets are fine in the err comfort of your own home. It's when they start dictating government policy that it's unacceptable.
I agree.
It's just a shame society is happy to alllow kids to be indoctrinated by certain institutions from the moment the cord is cut.
You seem to forget that I'm a Presbyterian, old cock. We don't go in for that sort of thing. In fact, we believe that anyone can potentially be a saint. The saints on Earth and the saints in heaven. Sainthood does not need to be approved by the Pope. That is our belief. It's consistent with the Bible in fact.
And they always think they're on the winning side, because they've deluded themselves into believing that their overlord agrees with them. That's the amazing trap of God for everyone who isn't willing to believe the story: the religious can justify anything as being what their God wants, and their egos can be so high that they feel compelled to act as they do in tribute to their creator for that fast pass to heaven. What a great tool of fear and guilt it is. Absolutely genius how the bible taps into the pitfalls of human psychology and our inherent neurological vulnerabilities to manipulate and control us. But as with every prolonged abuser/victim relationship, the victim must hold blame for not escaping the whipping and succumbing to the torture. I love you, Draggers, but trolling will not help your case in this thread. You've given people reason to think you were employing mental gymnastics before, and this is just another variation of distraction and avoidance. The metaphor would be quite profound if certain things were true. But love, no matter how irrational it may sometimes be, at least has a tangibleness that doesn't demand faith to believe in. You have a partner you can see and you love them for who they are to you in your life, you don't need to believe in them or have faith that they're there. Additionally, people in love are willing to enjoy what they have and don't care to interfere with the love of others, a claim religion cannot make so easily. People in love can't make laws telling others who they can love, they don't try to argue that you're not a moral or sane and healthy person for loving who you do, and they don't spout hate speech at you for loving someone.
I also enjoy the irony of how religion can actually often be the biggest wrench in people's attempts to practice their love. It's the bible that has waged the male/female coupling and anti-gay rhetoric the most throughout history and spurred it on even into this modern period no matter how inherently immoral and imbecilic such a viewpoint is when the religious are also sanctimoniously claiming moral superiority while pounding that tome of theirs. Love is fair game for you to practice....unless you're gay. Then your love isn't recognized as being worthy. A crock.
(None of this is aimed at you, by the way, @bondjames, I'm just ranting from the viewpoint of how the religious take this issue and distort it for their own agendas) Oh, you're just saying that because you are hoping to end up with a sainthood yourself, @Dragonpol. If you want a holy portrait painted of you that badly I'll happily indulge you. And you'd even be alive to see it, an added bonus!
It must be a pretty sweet deal to be a saint though, because even violating kids or helping to cover it up while you were alive doesn't seem to disqualify you from the title or void your sainthood. What a holy free for all!
We know that's good enough for you, but that's neither what we asked nor enough evidence for anyone. It's not what you claimed either.
@bondjames you're making a false analogy. And we can explain love and what brings people to believe in a deity. At least to a degree.
But an invisible sky fairy crosses the boundary IMHO
This is all separate from organized religions and their bibles, by the way. I happen to suscribe to the idea that it's paradoxical that the members of each religion, no matter how different their beliefs might be, are all convinced they're right. They can't all be right. In fact, maybe none of them are. But that has nothing to do with whether a god exists or not.
You're wrong there mate! Draggers has it but alas it's too much 'kerfuffle' for him to tell us and thus end the whole debate.
I think the case could easily be made that for us life is even more special, because we don't tell ourselves that this is only the first leg in a journey to paradise and that grand afterlife. This life if our only life, and with that lucid and hard knowledge we use our time with investment in each second. Compare this lifestyle to those who forget to live at all because of their dogma and confidence that the afterlife is theirs, losing so much precious time and expending useful energy spent on better, healthier things while just expecting things to go as the bible says without a hitch. With certain religious people I've listened to I've actually sensed a sort of contempt for our life on earth, like it is nothing compared to the glory of our time in heaven and something to be moved on from instead of enjoyed for each and every little moment. They want to die and get to the next step, so blind is their faith that what awaits them is exactly as promised by the priest waving a donation plate in their face. They don't see the game being played on them.
I genuinely feel pity for some of the religious because I have little reason to believe that their deep and aggressive relationship spent shackled to religion will have any actual payoff, and nothing at all like they've been promised. In the end, I think we all end this ride decaying under thick slabs of soil. Just make sure you use all the time you have until you get there.
Absolutely.
If the afterlife is so much better I often wonder why these sort of people don't just top themselves and release themselves from this miserable trailer and get straight to the glorious main feature?
Particularly when the vast majority of believers live in poverty and terrible conditions.
If I was an African villager why would I spend 40 years tramping 10 miles with a pot on my head to get water that would probably give me cholera anyway and then shag a bird (no johnny of course - the Vatican not keen) who would probably give me HIV whilst struggling day in day out to survive on land that can barely sustain farming? Because a Christian evangelist told me the good news about the all loving God and paradise when we die why wouldn't I go straight off and slit my wrists so I could end my grim existence and go and live the life of Riley in heaven?
Not to mention suffering is a test and the more you suffer the greater your reward in heaven. So if the all loving God you worship let's you be born blind, deaf and with no arms and legs and then let's your kids all die of cancer before they can walk you can relax that he's just testing your faith and if you stick with it you'll hit the jackpot when you die.
The whole scam really does put the Mafia, Bernie Madoff and FIFA to shame. It's perfect.
Additionally, to believe in and call oneself religious doesn't imply that one is taking everything in religious texts literally. Those who do may find it difficult to reconcile such notions with scientific fact.
As for those that don't take the bible literally, they are by far the best of the religious crowd and the ones that I would want to talk with most because I would be able to conclude that, at the very least, they were capable of thinking critically and had the ability to reconcile what's in the bible with accepted and proven fact. I wish more people were able to see that the bible is at best a collection of stories/parables and not a genuine historical record of the earth's development and creation, but I don't feel that in America, unfortunately. A lot of people really think it's God's word, that the earth is just 6,000 years old, that Noah carried people and animals to safety, and that it all started with Adam and Eve's sin. I see polls released all the time asking people in the states if they believe in parts of the bible or the content in it, and it always depresses me to see the numbers way, way above 0%.
RE: those who take any religious texts literally rather than just absorbing the valuable messages and lessons inherent within them - they are the ones (imho) who are more likely to be led astray and be a cause of harm in society (not physical harm necessarily). Back to my point about fundamentalism and being rigid in one's views and thoughts. That applies to everything.