How is that disagreeing? You say that you “need to acknowledge” a supreme being; that is not the same thing as claiming that such a being actually exists.
If you want use religion as a crutch, fine. You’ll just be demonstrating my contention.
gobear-have you ever read anything by Bishop Jon Shelby Spong?
I was looking at his books at Borders yesterday, and found them VERY interesting.
(My first thought was-I’ll bet Polycarp has read him!)
Spong’s been on my To Read list since this unintentional PR thread a few months back.
No, Gui, I haven’t read any of Spong’s works, but I’ve heard of him, though.
You said "Gods were invented to explain natural phenomena, to reinforce communal taboos, and to sort out the individual’s duties to his society. "
IMO, this was not the reason gods were created…they were created to be “crutches” as you put it. How nice for you that you don’t need to believe in god. Myself, I’ve decided to let my sorry ass use this crutch to limp along in life.
Yeah, my wife and I have read quite a bit by him, and own about seven or eight of his books. We know him, though not closely, through his teaching visit to our parish (we were both on the committee to pull that weekend together) and through friends at church who were married by him at his second parish and who have remained in touch ever since.
This link takes one to the Diocese of Newark’s page listing a wide variety of references to him.
His bibliography is at this link. Of the lot, Living in Sin and Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism are the two I’d recommend starting with, in either order.
With our substantial SDMB gay contingent, who have been critical of the fact that most Christian leaders are anti-gay, I’d like to take the opportunity to link to the statement he prepared for discussion at the last Lambeth Conference of all Anglican bishops and his statement at the death of Matthew Shepard, to show that there are church leaders who are prepared to speak out in defense of gay people as human beings worthy of respect.
Cool-I asked you in your rant if you had read him, but now I guess it’s answered.
I saw those two books you reccomend along with Christianity Must Change or Die there. I was like-wow, I have to get these! (I’ll look at the library).
gobear-look at the books and you’ll see what I mean.
As for religion being a crutch-yes, absolutely! What’s wrong with a crutch? Would you, upon seeing a man with one leg, kick the crutch from his hand away and scream, “Walk on your own!”
:rolleyes:
Gobear: “I completely understand your POV, but I don’t agree with it!” 
Actually, I’m using the pragmatic argument that what happened and continues to happen that reinforces my faith makes me a much more self-assured, compassionate, and fulfilled individual, and am simply out to offer that benefit to whoever it may also work on and with. (And also that because, in my Christian scheme of things, I believe myself to be under divine orders to spread the Good News.)
Hooo boy.
I’ve just had some very disturbing news. Guys, I just really need to cool off.
walks off muttering about people who call themselves Christian…
**Gobear wrote:
That’s a crock, and you know it. The majority of Chrisitians believe that the miracles of the Bible happened. Face it, if you don’t have miracles, you don’t have God.
Gobear**, first pull you head out of your ass and then go back and read what I was saying to MGibson. I was referring entirely to the books of Genesis and Exodus The majority of Christians and Jews do accept that the stories there are mythological. The whole point of the post was to show that MGibson’s evidence that (the J/C/I) God is evil or has evil tendencies is purely mythological. If you’re going to accuse someone of something you need better evidence that ancient stories that have no basis in reality. I thought you Atheists were suppose to be the logical, rational types? How could you overlook a simply fact like that?!
As anyone who has read my posts, I find religion, all religion, to be a relic of a primitive past that humanity can do without. It is possible to practice a kind, merciful, and charitable system of ethics without subscribing to anthropomorphic personifications of the forces of nature. As far as religion encourages irrational belief in the supernatural, I find it to be a brake retarding the progress of the human race.
Great! Now you’re the self-appointed arbiter of What is Right and Good for the Human Race! What a crock! Atheists are just as human and full of arrogance and Theists. Their (the Atheists) bigotry is the same as many Fundamentalist Christians; they’ve seen the Light (supposedly rational thought) and now have the right to look down their noses at all of us poor, lost Theists who are still stuck in the Dark Ages, believing in fairy tales and other impossible things.
You’re still full of the same human bigotry as the rest of us, you’re just hiding behind the idea of “rational thought” and “logic” like Fundamentalists hide behind “God” and “the Bible” to justify it.
Atheists are full of Theists???
THEIST GREEN IS PEOPLE, PEEEEEOPLE!!!
It’s a Good Book!
scheiss
Thanks, Weirddave for catching that!
The sentence should read:
Atheists are just as human and full of arrogance as Theists.
Damn those conceited & superstitious hairless apes.
Freyr, religion is born of ignorance and greed. It is typically propagated with conceit. Whether you like it or not, it is responsible for a considerable amount of ugliness and hatred in the world, and for that, I hate it. That is not to say that I hate religious people, I hate the philosophy they subcribe to - because they typically throw it in everyones face with conceit, offering no tangible or testable evidence to support their position, and then moronicaly insist on their own infallibility.
Pathetic simple-minded brainwashed behaivior.
A few exceptions naturally.
Very few.
And that book “The Bible” is disgusting when read literally. Good thing we don’t stone women for not being virgins anymore. Good thing we don’t kill (by stoning) rebellious sons. Good thing men aren’t aloud to rape non-married women and then have them forced to marry them. Yuck. Whoever wrote that stuff can go fuck themselves with the a long fucking metal pole with the words freedom, compassion, and equality written on them. Beause read literally that book exhibits none of those qualities as it’s driving philosophy and it damn sure should. Makes me want to spit when I read those things.
At least we seem to disgust each other equally.
DaLovin’ Dj
**dalovindj wrote:
Freyr, religion is born of ignorance and greed. It is typically propagated with conceit.**
This isn’t Great Debates, so asking for a citation for this would be useless. But I suspect it’s more your opinion and experience that factual evidence that drives you to say this.
Whether you like it or not, it is responsible for a considerable amount of ugliness and hatred in the world, and for that, I hate it.
Yes, it has. It’s also driven humanity to create some great wonders of the world. Whoa, what a concept! Religion can be used for good AND evil. (slaps head) Who would have ever thought of that! :rollseyes:
That is not to say that I hate religious people, I hate the philosophy they subcribe to - because they typically throw it in everyones face with conceit, offering no tangible or testable evidence to support their position, and then moronicaly insist on their own infallibility.
If you had said this applied to Fundamentalists, you’d gotten no argument from me. But you didn’t. You apply the lable to ALL religious people. Every person who’s a believer on this planet. You don’t even bother to even limit it to Christianity (which is what I suspect what you’re really ranting about). No, you generalize ALL RELIGIOUS PEOPLE. And that, dalovindj, makes you nothing more than a plain and simple bigot.
Using the same logic as stated above, if one black person commits a crime, then all black people are guitly of commiting crimes. Because there are white supremists, all white people are bigotted thugs. And because you make gross generalizations about religion, all Athiests are bigotted assholes.
dalovindj, do us all a favor and go down to the local gas station and get the shit steam-cleaned out of your skull, because that’s all that’s between your ears right now.
**And that book “The Bible” is disgusting when read literally. Good thing we don’t stone women for not being virgins anymore. Good thing we don’t kill (by stoning) rebellious sons. Good thing men aren’t aloud to rape non-married women and then have them forced to marry them. Yuck. Whoever wrote that stuff can go fuck themselves with the a long fucking metal pole with the words freedom, compassion, and equality written on them. Beause read literally that book exhibits none of those qualities as it’s driving philosophy and it damn sure should. Makes me want to spit when I read those things. **
Here we come to the meat of the matter. You don’t hate religion, you hate Christianity. shrug Alright, I can understand that.
But your logic is sloppy! You don’t come out and say that. No, you label ALL people of faith as being simple, brain-washed folks who follow a horrific philosophy. And you have the gall, in another thread, to accuse other people of following an irrational philosophy?
Pull your head out of your ass, you fool and realize that not everyone in Christianity follows the Fundamentalist theology and that there are more religions on this planet that Christianity.
Otherwise you’re no better than the simple brain-washed fools you rant against!
Dalovindj, I can grant that a lot of people use religious faith – their own or others – to advance their personal ends, whether reinforcing ignorance, greed, or lust for power.
But I can point you to a thread right here in the Pit where theists of varying stripes and non-theists joined in reinforcing my own self-worth. Are you accusing me, or Freyr (who is a theist, albeit not a traditional Yahwist monotheist), or Triskadecamus of ignorance, greed, or conceit? I rather think that you will say that you didn’t mean us, but them (with a vague cybergesture in the direction of some fundamentalists).
And precisely how many times does it have to be said that the overwhelming majority of Christians do not take the Bible as a literal historical document in all its parts? Get your head out of Baalam’s Ass and listen to us! I have no objection to your disagreeing with what I’m saying; I have a really serious problem with your assuming that Freyr or I are arguing from a stance that we do not espouse and have repeatedly stated that we do not espouse, and proceeding to create a monolithic Theism that you will war against. I’d be tempted to tell you that that sort of stereotyping is redolent of an eighth grader – except that there are some smart eighth graders on this board that I’d be insulting.
“If only you believed in miracles, babe, in miracles, we’d get by-eye-eye…”
can we just say that:
a) not all religions teach intolerence, but some do?
b) not all atheists are opposed to religion(s) (can you say ‘Buddhist’?), but some are?
c) bigotry can be found in all kinds of poeple?
Good.
now, if you want to quibble over percentages, knock yourselves out - locally, it is a glorious spring day, so I’m going out to play.
::: endorses HH’s post unequivocably ::::
::: (Wonders if a comment about miracles in re said endorsement would be out of line) ::::
::: decides it would be ::::
::: goes off to enjoy the day :::
It is my theory based on the evidence that I have seen of the nature of humans. Things I learned by dealing with them every day. There is not enough evidence to conclude either way whether there is a god, and since there is so much money tied to religion there is certainly a motive for people to lie. When money is involved, some people will lie. It seems alot of folks were really willing to grab onto some convincing lies back in the day. As always I accept the possibility that I may be wrong, but thaat is my best guess. Perhaps time will tell. I’m rooting for a past viewer.
Slaves built much of ancient Egypt. It sure was pretty, but it don’t make slavery right. Just because some good things have happened in the name of religion doesn’t excuse the attrocities.
No, you dolt. I specifically said there are exceptions. And I spoke of religion, not the religious. You’re run of the mill devout religious person is awash in ignorance as best as I can tell. This place happens to attract some pretty inteligent people. Just because there are several outspoken reasonable theists here, does not mean that they are the norm. And if you accept religions as myth than none of this conversation applies. You can learn from reading “Flowers for Algernon” and you can learn from reading the text “The Bible”. It’s the people who swear that these things are literal (like the folks in the OP!) that give in to the worst religion has to offer. Either way, it is the most common “Us against Them” meme scheme, and it is responsible for the creation of super organism mentalitys that result in extremely aggressive conflicts. The memes that start these conflicts are all based in words without proof. It’s dangerous, and it damn well may destroy us all one of these days. That’s not a prediction. It’s an awareness of the danger.
And I never said I hate all people who are religious. I said I hate religion. Your putting words in my mouth, and that aint allowed these days. . .
DaLovin’ Dj
You misunderstood me. I was accusing the people who wrote the religious texts of making them up for profit. It looks to me like they used peoples ignorance of where we come from for their own gain. I in no way said that all religious people are greedy.
Do me a favor and read the OP. Then click the link. That is what I am addressing. You guys coming in here and saying “Ww’re not like that!” does not in any way take away from the fact that many are exactly like the moronic jerk-offs on that other board.
I’m real happy you cats can see that religions are myth, folklore, and fables. I agree.
DaLovin’ Dj