very funny youtube video

[Avvesione]

Well, Almaa, I've always thought of you as well off (smart and successful) but what about a lotta other people who actually need a helping hand. Like someone who hadn't been introduced to a religion until after living a life of poverty and crime. Not saying that the only people who should convert are people who are down and out but just people who need a helping hand.

I could imagine someone picking up a Bible, Torah, Qur'an or any other religious scripture and turning their lives around. And I hope they have a good life their after.

Btw, Almaa, would you consider yourself an Agnostic (since you found religion interesting to study) or an Atheist (since you think logically)?

[Almaa]

I use the term atheism and atheist pretty loosely, I usually don't label myself as one because I think it's stupid to label yourself and the connotations that come with the label. One of my friends actually thought being atheist meant you worshipped Satan. I'm not religious at all, I don't believe in any god, I don't believe we are here for any reason other than whatever we do in life.

Tangible things that have some sort of effect on me, by that I mean... well, anything I can sense with the senses that affect me. I don't get mad or happy for no reason. Emotion isn't exactly a tangible thing, but emotions are invoked by tangible things. Those are the things I'm talking about. I don't get emotionally overwhelmed by the idea of a god watching over me or whatever. Something like a dream can be pretty questionable on tangibility, but in a way, you are watching it, maybe not necessarily seeing it with your eyes, but you still see it, and it can invoke emotion as well. Also faith is very loosely used when it comes to religion by most people I think. Like I said and you mentioned, so many people are what they are because of their parents. No doubt I am too, since they aren't religious, but what sort of faith does someone have that just follows their parents? I wasn't taught to have faith in the things I do have faith in, I developed that on my own, and that means something to me. I also think more people should practice what they supposedly believe in. I'm pretty cynical if you haven't been able to tell from my various posts, and if you are truly a Christian or whatever, then follow it. I don't see a lot of people doing that. Being a good person is a decision, but I think more people are bad than good.

I don't really care what anyone believes, I was just making a joke and it turned into this lol. I'd rather be friends with someone who thinks I'm completely wrong about my ideas of religion and is a good person, than someone who agrees with my ideas, but is a mean/cold/bad person. Also note that I'm writing this response during commercial breaks of Craig Ferguson so it might be jumbled.

Avve: I consider myself human, that's all.

[Nirokun!]

My parents are Catholic, but they dont practice. Im sure they're good people, but they dont need a bible to fall back on. It was my parent's decision to raise me (and my brothers) without religion (because of family reasons and not wanting to complicate things, i forget the conversation about it, it was during a long ass road trip) and to actually let us think for ourselves to see if we wanted anything to do with religion, and pick which one. I think that was the best gift I have ever been given. I think for myself, and make decisions for myself, i dont need a book or a community of people telling me how i should live my life. Sure im not perfect, sure im not terrible, but chances are, in all likelihood, neither are you.

With what Almaa was saying --about people actually following their religions-- i agree. I want to see christians not having sex until they're married, catholics not having sex at all unless its to make a baby, (other stuff from other religions i dont know that well lol), instead of having them judge me and who i am. Last time i checked, being gay was a bad thing under all things christian, but so is fucking a girl unless you're married to her. At this time, i've never done anything "gay" with another guy, nor have done anything "straight" with a girl. Who is more at fault here? Use your Christian eyes, damn your straight friend and his girlfriend, or the gay guy--who has nobody. (For those of you that say that you'll leave it up to god to decide if i go to heaven or hell [LOL], thats all good and great, but dont teach your kids to hate gay people because god doesnt like them, teach your kids to be good people, to give second chances, to have open minds.)

Um.. other religions: Blah blah sorry i dont know you that well, /criticize, /fix, /complain, blah blah~

(Sorry its all about gay people and stuff, just that~ its always been that way, being an atheist is not nearly as bad as being gay lol (being both is worse ;X but such is the way i am, oh well, poke fun at me, could care less~)

[Lordwafik]

(Sorry its all about gay people and stuff, just that~ its always been that way, being an atheist is not nearly as bad as being gay lol (being both is worse ;X but such is the way i am, oh well, poke fun at me, could care less~)

Does that make you a Gaythiest? >_>

*runs*

[Septimus]

you know, it's not really funny if the guy actually died.. .

I know it looked real but isn't it just a little to much of a cowincidence that at the very moment he sings "I will survive" a bus hits him.

That and the fact that the camera man edited and put together the final video after the guy "died" make it seem fake, it is very convincing though.

But that would require a few second of critical thinking, we don't like that.

(Do people seriously think that it wasn't an edit? Yeesh...)

[Elemmire]

Faith in Jesus = WIN!

/flame on

yeah because faith in the big invisible man in the sky who knows all and sees all is so not borderline crazy*


*it is crazy

George Carlin said it best

There's an invisible man... living in the sky who watches everything you do every minute of every day, and the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do, and if you do any of these ten things he has a special place full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry for ever and ever till the end of time.......................... But he loves you

[Shaede]

You'll have to excuse me, theology is an interest of mine, so I have more to say in response.

For Almaa, I know exactly what you mean. You said, though, that it seems stupid to believe in a power that you have no evidence of. This is actually a form of Athiest Agnosticism. This means you have no particular belief in any religion, but you heavily doubt the existance of anything beyond what we can see, hear, touch, smell, and feel.

But, even logically, this only works so far. There are decives that man has created to further our senses, such as night vision goggles or telescopes. But, in the end, all our technology only enhances the senses we already have. There are many senses we know nothing of. At the back of a cat's mouth, for example, is a sensory device that picks up something. We don't know what it is because we can't sense it. A popular theory about the cosmos is the existance of a "dark matter". They define this dark matter as a type of matter that we cannot detect with our senses (such as sight), but nonetheless exists and has gravitational fields. It's believed to be the reason there is so much black in the sky, as the light is being abosrbed by it. It's also believed to be what a black hole is made up of. This challenges what we understand as "real" and puts in a way we can understand that there may very well be very real things that our limited human senses do not notify us of. It's not a large jump from there to wonder if there is something beyond what we know, making people who have faith in higher powers seem a little less insane.

I can tell easily from your posts that you've been plagued by what I've come to term as Psuedochristianity. That is, a very shallow and narrowminded reinterpreation of the Bible. Christianity isn't alone in this, as many other religions have fallen to the same fate, especially Buddhism. Both have been molested by the age and are mostly used for power games and marketing purposes. It's really a shame that such wonderful ideals, which used to be the moral centers of our civilization, have been reduced to such a state. But this has been a downward trend for the past few thousand years. Society is becoming more and more sophisticated and less and less enlightened.

I know I'm going on a tangent on this thread, this is just an area of interest for me and I thought I'd share of a few of my observations.

Sorry to ruin your fun of watching Jesus-hobo getting hit by a bus.

[Almaa]

It's not only the fact that there is no evidence of the power, it's also the fact that the stories and background info on these powers can be so ridiculous that it makes it even harder to believe. Why did God need a rib from Adam to make Eve? I mean... where did he get the rib to make Adam, why couldn't he just make Eve because he is so powerful? Why a rib? He made Eve.... from a RIB?? What the hell? I mean, no one says dark matter was created from the rib of a man or something ridiculous like that. It's something we can't explain. We've explained religion and God(s) so well that it's gone too far. It's also pretty convenient that God created us in his image. He should be ashamed of himself, we consume and destroy everything, he created nothing but an advanced virus. (cynicism)

Also further on the senses, even if there are other senses we do not possess and things we cannot detect, such as dark matter, how much of an effect does dark matter have on you? Do other things you can't sense affect you and bring about emotions? Do you live for... dark matter?

Also like I said, you can label me whatever you want, but I don't subscribe to it. I'm human, not Atheist, Agnostic, Atheist Agnostic, or anything else. My ideas are my own and if some group believes similar things, good for them. Actually when people ask me what my religion is, I sometimes say Pessimism or Cynicism for laughs

[Chumm]

All religion is based on creation and death. That which happened before us, and that which happens after we die. While we're alive we're perfectly happy to rule the world, shape an entire planet around our comfort rather than live in harmony with the planet like every other animal. It's only that which we can't control, our origin and our deaths, that we fear and must rationalize.

We were not created in God's image, we created God in our own image. Something must have created all of this, why not rationalize that it was an omnipotent being that acts like a human? (love, vengeance, discipline, all traits particular to humans, despite the millions of other species of animal on the planet)

To rationalize our fear of death, we create a magical afterlife where nobody really dies, so long as they follow a certain set of social controls and listen to the church (created in a time where church and state were one in the same).

It's not necessarily naive to believe in that for which you have no proof, as Shaede cited there are many things we can't prove yet know or feel are real. It is naive, however, to support such a transparent thing as organized religion. It's a comforting thought when you're down that someone is looking out for you, "working in mysterious ways" as they say. The reality is far from that, nobody is pushing a button that says Billy gets Cancer and Nancy wins the lottery. Most things are outside of anyone's control, so the best we can do is make the most of our time here.

[Shaede]

I've been pressed to reply again. =)

Did you read the reply in which I cited a paragraph from "The Hero with a Thousand Faces"? It pointed out the obsurdity of mythology (religion). In the Bible, God created Adam (who was merely a sexless image of God) first, then using his rib, created Eve (thus distinguishing the two genders). The Greeks believed that Prometheus crafted man from stone and mud. In other interpretions of the story of creation, it gets even more rediculous. In one tribal South American culture it describes how mankind was merely sweat out of their diety. These aren't historyical accounts of actual events, they are metaphors used to symbolize a higher meaning that is not easily or sometimes impossible to conveyed with words.

Sure, the metaphors are certainly hard to see in some of these ancient cultures tales (even the Bible is ancient to us), but as someone earlier posted about the man, child, and mule, this is just a difference in perspective.

What we see today is a focus on the images that are actually metaphors. We also see secondary interpretation, that is, a reinterpretation of ideas based on the images used to logically explain the act rather then relying on the original metaphorical meaning.

I'll give one example so you can understand what I mean here:

A common practice even today is the act of Baptism. A popular reinterpretation of this acts infers that the holy water used "washes away" original sin. This is not the original meaning, it is a secondary interpretation to explain the use of water in this ritual. Originally, it was quoted by Jesus in the Bible that one must be reborn through the holy ghost and through water. This is the typical death/rebirth process common in all religions, where one's shortsighted worldly self is laid to rest, and your enlightened/heavenly self is born in it's stead. In most cases in our civilization, this rebirth process is lost and a cleansing process has taken it's place. This is likely due, in part, to the loss of understanding of what the water metaphorically represented in the original interpretation of the ritual.

God has likewise been redifined to fit logic, and is now often potrayed as some sort of big powerful guy in the sky. Though He may have been pictured as that in the past, it was merely a metaphorical representation of God, not a factual account of Him like we see so much today.

These images and metaphors in mythology are used to convey a deeper meaning, much as any story shows you perspectives into the human condition. These ideas are not something that can be said directly, they require symbols to get the idea across. Could I make you laugh without the use of a joke or make you cry without the use of a tragedy? These tools are symbols that express a greater meaning then what they simply are. The culture today is often a result of using these images as the meaning and coming to rediculous conclusions (such as the crazy lady in the other video have), and the counter-culture is typically made up of individuals who see the mockery in the beliefs of the mainstream and create a logical workaround (such as many Athiests).

Also, about your comment on how dark matter effects us, it is a material believed to be holding the entire universe together. This is all, of course, merely theory.

Also, I'm sorry if I seemed to call you something you are not, I was merely making an observation on what you've posted thus far. I certainly understand not taking a stand on the issue of religion. I view that as an extremely wise course of action, actually.

[Solefald]

You have no idea what dark matter is

[Shaede]

You have no idea what dark matter is

Thank you for clearing that issue up.

[Avvesione]

Thanks for the quick response Almaa.

[Almaa]

I understand entirely that today's world has changed the original meaning and metaphors of many things in all religions. That's what happens throughout time, everything is different now than it was at some other point in time. I can't really argue against you since you obviously know much more than I do about religion, and I'm not really trying to argue anyway. I'm just used to attempting to get people to understand why I believe what I do since a lot of naive people think not being religious is evil or something. Another one of my friends, years and years ago, once said, "How can someone not believe in God?" He didn't know that I don't when he said it and I found that really funny. The same friend this year prayed to God when the Longhorns were down by 12 in the Rose Bowl, and promised God that he would go to church for a month if they won. It's become so shallow.

Anyway, I do think the stories and metaphors that spawn from and around religion are interesting. I find books and films about things similar or related, the battle of good vs. evil, angels vs. demons, gods and goddesses, etc. are quite entertaining and I enjoy them a great deal. I just don't think it's true. But I'm not saying what is true or that you are wrong, I could be wrong. I mean, neither one of us can prove the other wrong, and I question it myself.

The big bang theory is just as ridiculous sounding as creation. Think about it, God created everything, ok, who created God? Alright then, the big bang, everything exploded out of the tiny dot. Where did the dot come from? What space was the dot resting in? What made the dot explode? Was their a catalyst involved? Was the catalyst God?Everything has holes and we can't really know anything for sure about our origin, which really is why I don't try to explain it, you'll drive yourself mad. I don't really believe in either one, but mainly because I don't know what to believe, so I just live, and the things around me, the things I feel, the things that make me happy, sad, mad, etc. are the things I'm concerned with.

[Lockecole]

Funny how when someone like Shaede actually represents a clear and concise argument, we get responses from people like "You have no idea what dark matter is."

Thanx for the contribution. Exits that " " way.

Minsinterpretation. Wether intentional or unintentional...is by far the largest and single greatest reason as to the lack of understanding when it comes to Christian standings, and theology.

The same friend this year prayed to God when the Longhorns were down by 12 in the Rose Bowl, and promised God that he would go to church for a month if they won. It's become so shallow.

Do you feel that your friend is sincere? Do you feel his actions represent what a Christian, based on what the Bible teaches, would and should do? Don't let others mislead you when it comes to Christianity and other religions. If you want to take a stand on something, study it, learn it, and be educated in it. Amazing how noone would ever judge a book without reading it...or just by reading a random chapter here and there, yet this exact action is done with the Bible day in and day out, where just about every aspect is taken out of context, because people choose to let it be that way, they choose to be decieved.

[Septimus]

The same friend this year prayed to God when the Longhorns were down by 12 in the Rose Bowl, and promised God that he would go to church for a month if they won. It's become so shallow.

Dear New Orleans,

Sorry about the levies, but I was busy helping a baseball player hit a homerun.

Maybe next time,
G.

I am really moved to the point of violence when I hear an athlete say that god helped him/her win a game.

[Chumm]

This thread needs more Jesus Quintana.
http://www.kinoweb.de/film98/BigLebo...x/turturro.jpg

[Almaa]

Minsinterpretation. Wether intentional or unintentional...is by far the largest and single greatest reason as to the lack of understanding when it comes to Christian standings, and theology.

The same friend this year prayed to God when the Longhorns were down by 12 in the Rose Bowl, and promised God that he would go to church for a month if they won. It's become so shallow.

Do you feel that your friend is sincere? Do you feel his actions represent what a Christian, based on what the Bible teaches, would and should do? Don't let others mislead you when it comes to Christianity and other religions. If you want to take a stand on something, study it, learn it, and be educated in it. Amazing how noone would ever judge a book without reading it...or just by reading a random chapter here and there, yet this exact action is done with the Bible day in and day out, where just about every aspect is taken out of context, because people choose to let it be that way, they choose to be decieved.

I'm not judging the Christian faith and ideals, I'm just going by what I see. The people around me that claim all this wonderful stuff about their religious practices and ideals always prove themselves wrong. Nirokun pointed out other ways people don't follow their religion, and yet, claim to be devote. I think a lot of religious followers are shallow and hypocrites in a religious sense. Practice what you preach. I never attacked all of Christianity, I just told you what I believed and why. Read my post again, I even said I wasn't arguing about interpretations and metaphors etc. because I can't.

[Lockecole]

I'm not judging the Christian faith and ideals, I'm just going by what I see. The people around me that claim all this wonderful stuff about their religious practices and ideals always prove themselves wrong. Nirokun pointed out other ways people don't follow their religion, and yet, claim to be devote. I think a lot of religious followers are shallow and hypocrites in a religious sense. Practice what you preach. I never attacked all of Christianity, I just told you what I believed and why. Read my post again, I even said I wasn't arguing about interpretations and metaphors etc. because I can't

Then we agree 100%. :D

[Shaede]

I share everyone's discontent with people who just mindlessly follow their belief in life. I'm sure everyone has numberous examples of the mockery people have made of religion.

But no matter what belief it is, if you ever get the honor of meeting someone who is well versed and extremely wise in their way of life or spirituality, you can be exposed to a truly enlightening way of thought that helps you understand the true purpose of religion and a little about the world and, ultimatly, yourself.

In the end all religion is merely the journey of the self.

Most people don't get this chance to open new avenues of thought, and simply live idly in the darkness, following whatever images and idols people have told them to respect...