Vatican, gays, and lulz

[Tricen]

I hate it when porn takes forever to load. But it's ok, I have this thread in the mean time.

[Kuya]

Oh Catholic church, your antics are so funny.

Aren't they always. It's funny, in todays world Roman Catholicism is synonymous with touching and fondling little boys peens. Yet they (Vatican and other figure heads of the church) seem to believe that they can shun and denounce anything outside of their own child erotica a terrible sin.

Popes can denounce gay marriage and all of a sudden say God defines it as Man -vs- Woman, but gargling a little boys flaccid penis in your mouth makes you less vile. This is the very hypocrisy that makes the Pope and his lolreligion an absolute joke. I undoubtedly know that someone will come in here defending their religion tooth and nail, that is what zealots do and I'm fine with that. Just remember that the vastly infinite, yet largely womanizing, scat eating Hippopotamus that I worship doesn't ejaculate at the thought of young lads.

This sting surprises me this || much.

You know what bothers me about this, and it's not directly aimed at you Miz. People are always the same no matter what reasons they use to justify themselves with. Nothing ever changes. I see these atheist rushing about ridiculing theist at almost every chance they get, as if they themselves were scientists or phylosophers of some great grandeur, and i can only let out a huge sigh and get slaped in the face by the cold reality that people, no matter what, are always weak minded dumb fucks, including myself there to, so i look wiser by saying it. Tehee.

It infuriates me to see these know nothing college students, who once they were told of the inconsistencies within religion, inmediatly snap into a self-rightous state of mind, and ignore everything else the professor said, and suddenly decide it's their job to reveal to the world the evils of all religions. Quite frankly, it's hilarious that they don't realize they themselves are adhering to a group that composes itself mostly of resentment instead of understanding. And are no more using this to give their pointless little lives a chance of escapism from the reality their future mostly holds nothing more than getting married/having kids/working till you die and that their freedoms and rights are nothing more than permisions allowed to them by those who have far more power than they could ever possibly amass, nothing but a slave's delusion of self enpowerment. I think this phrase best represents what of think of them: You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink it. Knowledge alone isn't enough to create wise and rational people.

[EternityEnd]

Oh Catholic church, your antics are so funny.

Aren't they always. It's funny, in todays world Roman Catholicism is synonymous with touching and fondling little boys peens. Yet they (Vatican and other figure heads of the church) seem to believe that they can shun and denounce anything outside of their own child erotica a terrible sin.

Popes can denounce gay marriage and all of a sudden say God defines it as Man -vs- Woman, but gargling a little boys flaccid penis in your mouth makes you less vile. This is the very hypocrisy that makes the Pope and his lolreligion an absolute joke. I undoubtedly know that someone will come in here defending their religion tooth and nail, that is what zealots do and I'm fine with that. Just remember that the vastly infinite, yet largely womanizing, scat eating Hippopotamus that I worship doesn't ejaculate at the thought of young lads.

This sting surprises me this || much.

You know what bothers me about this, and it's not directly aimed at you Miz. People are always the same no matter what reasons they use to justify themselves with. Nothing ever changes. I see these atheist rushing about ridiculing theist at almost every chance they get, as if they themselves were scientists or phylosophers of some great grandeur, and i can only let out a huge sigh and get slaped in the face by the cold reality that people, no matter what, are always weak minded dumb fucks, including myself there to, so i look wiser by saying it. Tehee.

It infuriates me to see these know nothing college students, who once they were told of the inconsistencies within religion, inmediatly snap into a self-rightous state of mind, and ignore everything else the professor said, and suddenly decide it's their job to reveal to the world the evils of all religions. Quite frankly, it's hilarious that they don't realize they themselves are adhering to a group that composes itself mostly of resentment instead of understanding. And are no more using this to give their pointless little lives a chance of escapism from the reality their future mostly holds nothing more than getting married/having kids/working till you die and that their freedoms and rights are nothing more than permisions allowed to them by those who have far more power than they could ever possibly amass, nothing but a slave's delusion of self enpowerment. I think this phrase best represents what of think of them: You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink it. Knowledge alone isn't enough to create wise and rational people.

Your argument is just as flawed. What infuriates me, Kuya, is these know-nothing adults, who were once told of the (not)miracles of God, snap into this self-glorifying rant about how women are inferior, the world is flat, gays are abominations, any amount of pleasure is unholy, and sperm are the blessed-imperial soldiers of God, and letting them die as casualties of lulz is a sin. Quite frankly, it's pitiful that they themselves are adhering to a group of righteous fools(The vatican) instead of furthering methods to save ourselves from the real ways we're all going to die, instead of hiding behind their laughable self-delusions that angels are going to rain bolts of holy light upon us all for being born unless we worship a deity of elitism.

I do concur that knowledge alone isn't enough to create wise and rational people-- Look at Ann Coulter. And the Pope.

Btw-- There's a reason college students are in college, they're relatively smart.(Take that lightely.) Unlike the uneducated priests of self-inflicted poverty who don't even know anything about the methods used to disprove religion.(Read: Common Sense/Science, whichever is the greater evilz.)

I swear, not all college students are blonde-ass bimbos going from sexcapade to sexcapade, enjoying their herpes. Get over that stereotype, and all others, for that matter.

Oh, and if I totally misunderstood you, that's my fault. I'm at a frat party, drinking my ass off, hoping to achieve alcohol poisoning. :3 Take that as you will.

[Kuya]

I'm not an adult, i am in college, and i don't know what you mean by frats, seing as how they're not the people i'm talking about... far from it. And i get angry at some of these people because they completely misinterpret what is being relayed to them, and behave like 15 year olds trying to roh roh fight the powa. As if many of our comtemporary hippies haven't taught us that: No, yelling angrily at the goverment/church isn't gonna make the world happy and fluffy, movements that actually have a meaning get horribly, horribly warped into fads. A common problem with people our age.

Thanks to our rebellius nature we question established rules much easier, which is wonderful... till it becomes a fad and they don't even know what the movement was all about in the first place, because if the possitive aspect of being young is being rebellius, the ironic, negative aspect is the unending need to belong to something.

Being, an atheist (which i believe they would be better off just calling themselves agnostics, since it's less pretentious that way), was about getting free of those archaic ideas and further advancing human potential through logic and honest understanding, and the enpowerment of human potential without it being attritbuted to some unknown force. Instead now we have, as usual, people who have now turned it into some abominal pack. I guess i shouldn't be so surprised, when a group of people with similar ideas congregates it tends to make them aggresive towards others and also give off the illusion that they must be right.

Which is what now leaves us with what was, and i hope still is, a movement to advance human potential, to people being pricks towards eachother because the other clearly doesn't know the "truth". Gee, where have i heard that before. Isn't the history of mankind, oh so ironic?

[Blarg]

Being, an atheist (which i believe they would be better off just calling themselves agnostics, since it's less pretentious that way)

I'm not really sure whats pretentious about saying someone is an atheist. The terms atheist and agnostic have an overlap in definition, but generally an agnostic is split mostly ~50-50 on the existance or not of a god, whereas an atheist is more so believing the chances of a god exist are much lower than 50%. Atheists themselves can be split up into different degrees of atheism, for instance weak atheist up to strong atheist. I would probably be on the strong atheist side of things (where the odds of god(s) existing are incredibly low) but even though I leave room for the possibility of a god (as there is the possibility for everything no matter how small the odds are) I am definitely not an agnostic.

[Alleya]

Militant atheists merely replace the all-powerful intangible God with all-powerful intangible "reason." It's still blind devotion to an intangible idea and they are no less guilty of forcing their opinions on everyone else as your average religious person. Militant atheism is just religion in disguise and if you remove the words "god" "reason" "science" "jesus" "bible" and "logic" from any debate between the two sides, they are practically indistinguishable from each other.

If someone chooses to believe in God, fine. That does not make it the science-given duty of every enlightened soul to "shoot down" their arguments with something just as volatile and inconsistent as a supernatural God. Learning to co-exist with people, ironically enough, is the aim of all religion. There will always be people on either side who choose to take the "one true ______" route and they will always be wrong.

Secularism is the real path to enlightenment and self-improvement, not fervent denial of any opinion not one's own.

[Volken]

There's homosexuals and pedophiles in Catholic church?? Old fucking news, back when homosexuality was less socially accepted, men would join the church in hopes of "curing" their desires for other men, and pedophiles have been joining the priesthood for the same reason. Obviously they haven't been having the success they hoped for, but since every fucking religion in the world = do as I say not as I do, I could careless about peoples imperfections.

[EternityEnd]

I was joking about the frat thing. >_> For the record, I do call myself agnostic. I do believe in the possibility of a higher power, though I don't believe in the possibility of the Christian higher power. It's simply too corrupt, malevolent and contradicting.

What I have a hard time understanding is this: Why are Christians/Catholics/Whatever able to pick and choose what they want to believe/interpret of the Bible? Honestly, 'God' said all of it-- It obviously cannot be flawed. If you don't believe the entirety of the Bible, it doesn't seem, to me, that you would be Christian. Why is it that some gay people are Christian? According to the Bible, we're satan worshippers. I don't understand.

Why are some christians pro-GLBT rights? I mean, it seems like that's just as bad as practicing it. They're obviously disagreeing with their absolute God. Why do some Christians take the events(That, largely, have been disproved.) in the Bible as unliterally as possible? God says they happened. It must be true.

My point is, we've disproved so much of the Bible-- Why hasn't the religion been obliterated for hundreds of years? I'm baffled. Christians laugh sceptically at all the old Norse religions and lore, and all of the other religions that have faded away. Why are Christianity, Judaism and Islam so special? Even various persisting religions such as Buddhism and shit, they've laughed at. I mean-- The Church even believed in Dragons in medieval times. The Bible doesn't even tell of the Americas or Australia. wut much?

[Alleya]

Because reasonable Christians do not take the bible at face value. The simple fact is that 98% of them realize that the bible isn't a literal account, but a collection of stories and guidelines laid down by wise men who may have in fact known Jesus. They realize that some of the inconsistencies and contradictions are incongruous with modern living, and they take the passages that state God's love for all man kind no matter what seriously. They realize that the bible is a guidebook and not a doctrine. The other 2% are crazy fundamentalists who insist on a literal translation and ruin it for everyone else. As I pointed out before, Atheists have this too, and in far greater numbers.

(for the record, I am agnostic)

[EternityEnd]

But God does not love mankind no matter what, lol. He only loves heterosexual caucasian men who believe in him and his 'son' devoutly.

[Kuya]

I don't know what you mean, our current incarnations of spirituality will die out eventually. It's a given.

But God does not love mankind no matter what, lol. He only loves heterosexual caucasian men who believe in him and his 'son' devoutly.

Quite frankly, why go out of our way to call them hypocrits, which many are by the way, when they are at least trying to incorporate some fraternity and compasion for other people? They can be as hypocritical as they want if this stops them trying to hurt others because their book say so, and not to mention, this hypocrisy you're referring to, or better said, manipulation of old doctrine to fit in with newer times will eventually lead to their disolution. So if i were you, considering what you said earlier, i'd cheer this "hypocresy" on.

[Alleya]

But God does not love mankind no matter what, lol. He only loves heterosexual caucasian men who believe in him and his 'son' devoutly.

You need to go actually read the bible and attend some congregations for moderate Christians. This is simply one interpretation, and since it's the most extreme and controversial it gets the most attention in the media. If you speak to people about what they believe you will find that the majority of them will tell you that everyone is equal in God's eyes and that all you need to do to get to Heaven is to be kind, generous, understanding, and follow the 10 commandments.

[EternityEnd]

I've read quite a bit of the Bible, and have attended Church on many an occasion. Yet, I always seem to get batshit preachers who make me walk out. Maybe it's North Carolina.

Is there a more modern version of the Bible that I'm unaware of, that spreads love, acceptance and non-discriminatory thinking? The Bible was written by, from what I understand, people relatively far from Jesus' lifetime, who couldn't have possibly known him personally. Even if the first did-- The several other people who wrote the Bible didn't. It's preposturous. There's no proof Jesus even existed by what evidence they gave/we found.

Let's not forget the men who wrote the Bible lived in a time of extreme bias, treating women like dirt and already regarding homosexuality with certain disdain. Why can't we just accept the fact that humans' past ignorances bled their way into the Bible, and move on, accepting everyone?

[Kuya]

Let's not forget the men who wrote the Bible lived in a time of extreme bias, treating women like dirt and already regarding homosexuality with certain disdain.

A time of extreme bias? When did this time end?

[EternityEnd]

Let's not forget the men who wrote the Bible lived in a time of extreme bias, treating women like dirt and already regarding homosexuality with certain disdain.

A time of extreme bias? When did this time end?

Nice catch. It hasn't, but it's lessened over some 2000 years... >_> Now we don't execute women if they talk back/refuse to have sex.

[Andarvi]

Let's not forget the men who wrote the Bible lived in a time of extreme bias, treating women like dirt and already regarding homosexuality with certain disdain.

A time of extreme bias? When did this time end?

tou-che.

[Alleya]

I've read quite a bit of the Bible, and have attended Church on many an occasion. Yet, I always seem to get batshit preachers who make me walk out. Maybe it's North Carolina.

Is there a more modern version of the Bible that I'm unaware of, that spreads love, acceptance and non-discriminatory thinking? The Bible was written by, from what I understand, people relatively far from Jesus' lifetime, who couldn't have possibly known him personally. Even if the first did-- The several other people who wrote the Bible didn't. It's preposturous. There's no proof Jesus even existed by what evidence they gave/we found.

Let's not forget the men who wrote the Bible lived in a time of extreme bias, treating women like dirt and already regarding homosexuality with certain disdain. Why can't we just accept the fact that humans' past ignorances bled their way into the Bible, and move on, accepting everyone?

And this is where atheists depart from the reasonable nature they portent to be universally subscribed to.

Presented with a contradictory experience, you launch into trying to factually debunk people's beliefs based on the behaviour of others when all you've been presented with is the idea that you are wrong in one facet of your argument that has very little reason to be debunked.

[Kuya]

Now we don't execute women if they talk back/refuse to have sex.

Sorry for the moar questions but, who do you mean by we lol?

[Blarg]

Militant atheists merely replace the all-powerful intangible God with all-powerful intangible "reason." It's still blind devotion to an intangible idea and they are no less guilty of forcing their opinions on everyone else as your average religious person. Militant atheism is just religion in disguise and if you remove the words "god" "reason" "science" "jesus" and "logic" from any debate between the two sides, they are practically indistinguishable from each other.

If someone chooses to believe in God, fine. That does not make it the science-given duty of every enlightened soul to "shoot down" their arguments with something just as volatile and inconsistent as a supernatural God. Learning to co-exist with people, ironically enough, is the aim of all religion. There will always be people on either side who choose to take the "one true ______" route and they will always be wrong.

Secularism is the real path to enlightenment and self-improvement, not fervent denial of any opinion not one's own.

It's funny that militant is the term used for what is essentially questioning someones beliefs. Religion is protected from inquiry to such an extent that asking why and posing questions is 'attacking'. I don't think any belief should be above this, and besides, faith being so important to most religions, by keeping that faith in the face of questioning should only strengthen that faith, which should be a good thing to a religious person.

I don't see how you think that atheism is religion in disguise. There are no 'rules' to atheism aside from not believing in god, what an atheist thinks about abortion, morality, or homosexuality is all their own, no book or institution tells us what to think or how to act.

Learning to co-exist with people, ironically enough, is the aim of all religion./[quote:96ce5]
This is the aim of moderate views of religion. The term moderate exists in contrast to the fundamentalist's, and as I'm sure you are aware, fundamental religion has strong beliefs of co-existing with people who share your view only. Fundamentals make up a scary % of the population, and many have positions of power in governments. In a book I'm currently reading (I can't find the exact page where I read this so I'll paraphrase what I can remember) the government that was currently in power in the USA considered nuclear war with Russia (I think it was Russia) so that it would fulfill part of the prophesy of the rapture. The belief in Jesus' return was important enough to even consider potentially engulfing the world in a 3rd world war should not be taken lightly. As Sam Harris puts it, 21st century technology existing with 2000+ year old beliefs is a very scary reality that now exists. The sword and gun of the past/present will give way to ever increasing destructive power.

[quote:96ce5]Secularism is the real path to enlightenment and self-improvement

[/quote:96ce5][/quote:96ce5]
I agree that keeping religion and politics separate is the best hope for potential world peace. The problem is that secularism will NOT happen by not questioning/'attacking' religious belief. Sitting idly by and watching will not bring about the change that is necessary to achieve this.

I probably got a bit off topic here, oh well.

edit. I should have probably refreshed the page before I responded to this as a lot has been posted since.

[Alleya]

Questioning someone's beliefs is just as futile as sitting idly by. Working with others is the only way to overcome differences.

This is what is fundamentally wrong with discussion religion, or the lack of which thereof. Everything is simply ideas. There are no truths. People can believe there are truths. Truth can be that a God exists, and truth can be that a God does not exist. How one allows the truth they see to affect their lives and behaviour is what makes faith. Atheists simply have faith that there is no God, it is an idea that cannot be proven and it cannot be disproven. Reasonable people on both sides of this debate realize this and simply choose to co-exist. Wiping out one way of thought or another benefits no one and changes very little.

The bible may have contraversial and unreasonable things written in it, but the bible does not create those things. People do, and the injustices, as well as the wholly just, found in its pages will always exist.