It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
I have never strapped explosives to myself. Why would I blow people up and kill them, therefore, preventing them from having a chance to turn to Christ?! That just doesn't make sense.
Kill for their " special magic person"
Throughout history it is Christians that tend to be killed for their faith, rather than them killing others. Besides, it is not what the Bible teaches.
Faiths are based on dogmas, which at their core don't tolerate reason as soon as reason overthrows the dogma.
Those who cling to a faith must choose exactly how tolerable they wish to be. Sadly, many followers of certain religions aren't as tolerable as you are. Sadly, many will commit atrocities, either actively or by poisoning the minds of others, in the name of their religion. The many who do, can make a religion, and by association even its most liberal followers too, look really bad. We, understandably, after years and years of harsh and irrational criticism from religious fanatics, tend to lose our patience with the religion in total. We know that not every Jew, Christian or Muslim is so-and-so, but it becomes tougher every day to remain nuanced, to separate the kind and good people from the darkness that is carried forward by all the rest. After aeons of repression, of "Holy" crimes, of anti-science, of cruel judgement and inexcusable executions, many religions have damaged their own 'reputation' beyond the point of no return.
I find it furthermore remarkable that the Bible keeps being brought up and in fact keeps being defended, considering that it was written thousands of years ago, in a world radically different from the one we live in today. To seek guidance in that book when you're an uneducated sheep herder in the year 200 AD, makes complete sense. But the way we look at the world today, the way we try to uncover the hidden machinations and origins of the universe, even the way we look at morality in our complicated and challenging world of today, should not be drawn from the Bible, a book that was never significantly revised, re-edited or rewritten even once in the past several hundreds of years. That's like asking someone to perform an open-heart surgery with only some 16th Century textbooks at their disposal for techniques and guidelines.
I admire you, @Dragonpol, and I mean that unironically. You're a good man and a good friend. I'm confident you haven't lost it. That you pride yourself on being a man of faith is something I can respect. I have a lot of confidence that you will not coerce others into slavishly following your line of spiritual thinking. All I'm asking is that you will at least concede this: you are among an exceptional few, whereas many on this planet have their minds darkened and clouded by religious doctrine, and have abandoned reason, logic and sanity in favour of their religion.
Of course, @Thunderpussy. I never thought anything else in fact. :)
I hope you have sympathy for all the scientists and thinkers of the past that got sent to death or exile for being right in disproving the lies spread by religious centers.
as an atheist, I've raised both my kids, not to steal, kill etc without the threat of a big
hot place to go to if I didn't, so my question is, am I a better person than a person of
faith, as I don't need any threats of punishment to do the right thing ?
( I accept the term better is subjective ) ;)
Interesting point, @Thunderpussy. A common counterpoint of the religious (or what they like to think is a counterpoint) is that without the bible the fabric of humanity would be torn at the seams and society would be in chaos with no moral fiber to speak of.
I find this to be nonsense, of course, and you are the perfect example of it as a parent who has raised kids successfully without the influence of the bible, much like my parents raised me, thankfully. We shouldn't need an ancient book full of largely anachronistic "teachings" to lead our kids in the right direction on any issues, but especially when it comes to morality. There are no useful values in the bible that can't be taught without the bible, like universal ideas of community, acceptance, understanding, friendship, honesty and the whole nine. Of course some members of the religious community and the Vatican as one of its representatives and leading "authorities" can't even follow those simple tenets of being a good person, especially when it comes to acceptance and understanding. This whole "we're all sinners" lark can piss right off along with the bible and its overblown opinion of itself.
I wonder what we actually have to teach kids about the life of Job, for instance? That our almighty, great "God" that loves us so much is more than ready to allow "Satan" to take everything we value but our lives just so that asshole in the clouds can prove to his enemy that faith can be unshakable? Quite a nasty test, that.
It's more than apparent the more that you look at it that the bible and the "lessons" and tenets "taught" therein are the creation of men for men, right down to the explanation of creation that casts Eve as the person that sparks the fall of man, causing God to make women suffer and serve in a lowly status to the more dominant male sex, a gender role women still haven't overcome since. It reads like masturbatory male fantasy, and in its creation of a hell it has tricked fools for centuries into behaving like hysterical nut cases to avoid an afterlife of eternal damnation caked in napalm flame express from their all-good, all-knowing "Lord." The bible isn't a tool for lesson teaching, it's a sorry mechanism for shoddy and disgusting social control that has led to the savage and untold deaths of millions of innocents throughout history, and has kept undeveloped and blindly shallow notions about sexuality and gender alive with prejudices we are still fighting to overcome in 2016.
I think it is important to let our children figure things out for themselves and afford them the ability to follow the path that speaks to them without force-feeding them anything one way or the other. My hope is that if they are somehow more attracted by the teachings of the bible they are smart enough to at least not take it as a piece of historical documentation that is to be seen as 100% true in its every facet, and instead uses it as they would any book to try and study and learn values from it that enrich their lives and don't harm or diminish those of others. We're in a second enlightenment right now, however, with levels of atheist rising, so there is hope that more people are waking up.
In moments like this I think about my favorite quote from the late, great mind of Christopher Hitchens: "'Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it."
Hopefully that human decency is within reach again soon, and we are developing at a more steady rate into progressive and open-minded people that don't try to control the lives of those who dare to live in a way that is counter to an ancient book that has been outdated for centuries, yet still affects our laws and how we are to exist in our current day society. We'll need more than just blind faith to make this happen, however.
Take this thread for example. People who honestly believe in the existence of ghosts will no doubt pass on that horribly erroneous belief to their offspring. But since the concept of a "ghost" can at best be vaguely defined and since we can neither conclude that they are or aren't malicious - because there is no certainty in this discussion except that ghosts don't exist - children of ghost believers may end up looking at the world in a very strange, utterly confused and possibly dangerous way. Deprived of an open mind, clouded by the intellectual sadism of their parents, they are almost bereft of their dignity and their rational understanding of the world before they even got the chance to develop any. Fortunately, every once in a while, a child ends up breaking free from the superstitious clutches of their miscalculating parents. This, in some cases, leads to parents and children becoming totally estranged from one another. I've known Jehova's Witnesses for example that completely rejected their children upon their refusal to share their parents' ludicrous belief system. Parents disavowing their children so to speak in this example perfectly demonstrate the dangers of operating under instructions of the god delusion. Their brains are so mashed up by the irrationality they themselves continue to feed, they get their priorities all wrong. If you put your love for a non-existing cosmic being before your love for your children, you are mad.
Whether you try to convince your kids that ghosts are real, or you allow your religion to hijack morality, please understand that you're supporting some of the biggest lies man has ever told himself, that you are part of a group which appears to have its followers rapidly declining in numbers, and that you are subjecting your children to a form of intellectual child abuse. Because once you've cemented an idea in the formative mind of a child, it's tough for educators and others to remove it again. But if some day those children take their "love for god" just one step further than you taught them and blow up buildings or trash institutes for genetic research, or fear the nights because demons and ghosts might have come to possess and haunt them, I hope you understand the horrible nature of the things you've done.
I must repeat what I've already said so often: we, as a species, need to move on if we wish to survive, and we shall not succeed as long as we refuse to dispense with Medieval hysteria and make-belief from the pre-scientific era.
In a world where gay people are targeted for bullying or acts of violence for their "anti-Christian" lifestyle and where extremists use the word of their "God" to kill others for personal and divine glory, there's really no time to be pleasant and agreeable about this, I'm afraid to say.
Not all religious parties are guilty of course, but a sizable portion are an active part of a system that has been responsible for unspeakable savagery that continues to deny certain groups representation and peace in this world.
And that's just one of the many reasons why it's important for atheists to speak out.
It s your jihad.
Our "struggle" will be aided by the simple fact that instead of praying and hoping things will somehow go our way, we actually do things to make that a reality. It helps when one doesn't spend the majority of their time on their knees, wearing invisible shackles.
Telly Savalas's Ghost Story -
Anyone seen the UK Amazon TV advert? The solution to sore knees is not knee pads, it's to stop kneeling in the first place. My kids have the freedom to follow any religion they wish but I sincerely hope they can spend their lives free from kneeling before any person or God.
One can pray without kneeling too, of course.
@patb, just strive to teach your kids that the only way to solve your problems is to actually do something about fixing them instead of hoping they'll just miraculously fix themselves. The latter is the very definition of prayer and why it is pathetic and unwise to practice.
The Devil, is he all bad ?
Alas poor ghost!