Summer means no religion or politics?

[Akatosh]

The bloody point, is even if God exists, due to the incompetence of humans to understand something, it has been misinterpreted. You cannot be aware that your knowledge about God is so little, yet you seem to think you have enough to prove he doesn't exist. Or the other way around.

You cannot possibly argue about light speed without ever knowing the subject can you? No, because you would appear to be as a fool. The reason why none of you trying to prove of his inexistence and existence, seem to be a fool, is because all of you seem fools, therefore there's is no difference.

In related news, I'd like to inform you that there is a floating island right over you home right now. You may not have noticed it, but that's because of your incompetence to understand it. It is invisible, has no measurable effect on its environment and is not neccessary to explain any natural phenomenon, but I assure you it is there, because it says so in a book that's several thousand years old and shows obvious signs of having been edited a lot during its history.

You cannot possibly argue about the physics of floating islands without knowing anything about the subject, can you? No because that makes you look like a fool! Now live by the arbitrary and vague rules I claim the inhabitants of the island set forth, or they'll torture you for all eternity.

Seriously, "ARGUING ABOUT IT IS FOOLISH BECAUSE I DECLARE IT TO BE ABOVE HUMAN REASON" is the end of research and reason, and the weakest argument I heard so far in this thread. (Narrowly beating "your mom").

/EDIT: Wait, I think I've actually moved from Weak Agnosticism to Just Barely Agnostic Form Of Atheism in the course of this thread. Darn you, discussions.

[Matti]

The bloody point, is even if God exists, due to the incompetence of humans to understand something, it has been misinterpreted. You cannot be aware that your knowledge about God is so little, yet you seem to think you have enough to prove he doesn't exist. Or the other way around.

No, we can't prove that he doesn't exist. But since there's no proof at all that he DOES exist, it doesn't matter. It's as superfluous as impossible to prove his nonexistence.

And if all the religious people tell others that they had personal experiences with god, therefore he must exist then I have to wonder why other people live a long life and die with 90 years, but never ever had any experience like that. Does god have his 'chosen pets' he reveals himself to?

And if someone tells me that you have to first believe in god, and then you can see/experience him, well then I can't take him seriously..

@ Andail: Damn, I wanted to keep my spaghetti avatar as long as this thread is on the first page of the general forum, what do I do now?

[SSH]

So, here's an interesting point of discussion: if the existence of God is unprovable and also undisprovable and as Mr Matti puts it "superfluous" is any church worthwhile? In some ways, even if god is irrelevant can a church still be a good thing?

Pros:
Many churches help the poor, sick, etc.
It can be a comfort to many
Some churches have services that are a form of entertainment
Some churches are a form of social club
Both of the above might be worth paying for (see money issues under Con)
Some churches encourage principles of living that are genearlly seen as good by most people even if they throw in a few extra rules that athiests may not entirely approve of or think are superfluous
Many churches support charity work in developing countries, etc.

Cons:
Some churches spout hate and hope (for example) that Obama gets cancer mainly becuase he's a Democrat
Militant anti-gay/abortion/etc nutters
Some churches give people huge burdens of guilt
Some people spend lots of money on their church
Some churches squander the money they get on giving leaders lavish lifestyles or on supporting the above nutters

[Dualnames]

The bloody point, is even if God exists, due to the incompetence of humans to understand something, it has been misinterpreted. You cannot be aware that your knowledge about God is so little, yet you seem to think you have enough to prove he doesn't exist. Or the other way around.

You cannot possibly argue about light speed without ever knowing the subject can you? No, because you would appear to be as a fool. The reason why none of you trying to prove of his inexistence and existence, seem to be a fool, is because all of you seem fools, therefore there's is no difference.

In related news, I'd like to inform you that there is a floating island right over you home right now. You may not have noticed it, but that's because of your incompetence to understand it. It is invisible, has no measurable effect on its environment and is not neccessary to explain any natural phenomenon, but I assure you it is there, because it says so in a book that's several thousand years old and shows obvious signs of having been edited a lot during its history.

You cannot possibly argue about the physics of floating islands without knowing anything about the subject, can you? No because that makes you look like a fool! Now live by the arbitrary and vague rules I claim the inhabitants of the island set forth, or they'll torture you for all eternity.

Seriously, "ARGUING ABOUT IT IS FOOLISH BECAUSE I DECLARE IT TO BE ABOVE HUMAN REASON" is the end of research and reason, and the weakest argument I heard so far in this thread. (Narrowly beating "your mom").

/EDIT: Wait, I think I've actually moved from Weak Agnosticism to Just Barely Agnostic Form Of Atheism in the course of this thread. Darn you, discussions.

Exactly. Agreed. So it's whether now, you as a person have a credibility infuelnce over me. If you do, I will agree that yes indeed there's an island. If you don't I won't be able to prove it  otherwise, therefore I 'll have to make a decision whether I want to believe in it or not. If my IQ or social capabilities are very limited I will have my fear choose for me.

As for the strength of my point, if you have black hair and I insist you have blond hair, will you even bother to answer to me?

The bloody point, is even if God exists, due to the incompetence of humans to understand something, it has been misinterpreted. You cannot be aware that your knowledge about God is so little, yet you seem to think you have enough to prove he doesn't exist. Or the other way around.

No, we can't prove that he doesn't exist. But since there's no proof at all that he DOES exist, it doesn't matter. It's as superfluous as impossible to prove his nonexistence.

And if all the religious people tell others that they had personal experiences with god, therefore he must exist then I have to wonder why other people live a long life and die with 90 years, but never ever had any experience like that. Does god have his 'chosen pets' he reveals himself to?

And if someone tells me that you have to first believe in god, and then you can see/experience him, well then I can't take him seriously..

But that's the whole point there! It doesn;t mean that going to church to all your life you'll go to heaven and the other way around. Yout just have to separate on what's bullshit and what isn;t. How many people claim to have seen an Alien lifeform and how many have  really seen one? You've never seen an alien yourself but some of you do believe despite that effect. It's all about WANTING to believe. Nobody believes in something because it has been prooven by 24 mathematical equations and a couple of laws of physics.

[Akatosh]

SSH: It's certainly nice of churches to also do good. But don't you think all the money and manpower would be better spent on secular charities that mainly aim to do good and focus on the points the churches "also do", without all the religious hogwash and the ever-present lurking risk of fundamentalism?

Also... if it's the institution that counts, not the faith itself... why not engineer a new religion whole-cloth, one without the 'risky' texts? It will be just as non-falsifiable as the current one, but have the added benefit of ideological and doctrinal streamlining. You know, sort of what Plato advocated. There are theories around that the Christian religion, for example, actually is a type of noble lie - a set of instructions to get people to fall in line, so civilisation can blossom. Supernatural threats are very convenient, because they can be very scary to people and you hardly need any effort to keep the pressure up... well, until the scientific method comes around.



Dualnames: Wow, you would believe the island story if I was any charismatic? I have a few local bridges to sell to you, then. But thanks for illustrating how people's thought works on those issues. I'd say if there was no evidence for something and it wasn't neccessary to explain the observed phenomenons, you could just slash the proposition. That's what Atheists do.

And of course I would bother to answer you. You'd have obviously been misinformed in that case, and it's quite worth clearing up. (Although my actual haircolor is sort of hard to pinpoint, as it hovers somewhere between blonde and brown).

[Dualnames]

With the hair I wanted to point out that you should not reply to someone who tells you something about you that contains absoulutely no truth. Do you? If you do, you are indeed a higher person (not holy) than I thought. I would believe that story if I sensed you were telling the truth. Talent has nothing to do with religion. I'd believe you if your truth wasn't that stupid to believe.  For an atheist you're attempting a lot of conversion. I used to be one like you, (no nothing earth shattering happened to have me change), so I'm aware of what you want to say, and what you think of me.

[Khris]

So, here's an interesting point of discussion: if the existence of God is unprovable and also undisprovable and as Mr Matti puts it "superfluous" is any church worthwhile? In some ways, even if god is irrelevant can a church still be a good thing?

Matti didn't say god's existence was superfluous; he said it's superfluous to prove god's non-existence.

List of pros and cons

Hm, a typewriter is able to produce pages of uniform, legible text, but using a Word processor and a printer is clearly superior. So while a few people like typewriters and still use them or put them in museums because they look nice, most people who are just interested in an easy way of producing lots of easy manageable printed text completely rely on word processors only.
What I'm saying is that while church arguably has some pros, it's not necessary to swallow all the cons that come with it, there's an alternative way without cons (and con men).

[Nacho]

This is funny... Apparently this has moved from "Does God exist" to "Are Churches good?".

The funny thing is that "the pros" about "churches" can be perfectly applied to any human society, like, for example, a "Star Wars Appreciation Club".

Something I said from the very first post. Something I was asked to apology for...

Because churches, without supernatural source, are no different from any other human club.

[Matti]

@ Khris: Exactly.


The pros of the church have nothing to do with belief, as it has alredy been said, because we don't need all the mumbo-jumbo to do good things, to respect others and be helpful. And I find it rather creepy if someone is being helpful, just because his God told him so (via the commandments/bible). If he isn't that way because he thinks that it's the best for society / a good and happy life then.. I don't know.. it's rather weird and even frightening.

But as I stated somewhere in the middle of this thread, if people bahave in a way, that it's the best for himself and others, I don't really see a problem. I would just like to see (organized) religion disappear. Despite churches history, which in no way could EVER let me be part of the church (no matter how religious I was), without hating myself, I just think it's somehow embarrasing and creepy to believe that men were created by a supernatural being and have to live according to rules that childish and perky entity with his doubtful experiments has once set.

I agree that we can't know and understand everything. I don't know why we're here and something like the big-bang isn't something I can easily understand, cause it's very abstract and enormous. But that IN NO WAY could ever lead me to the completely arbitrary conclusion that there must be a force out there that created everything and watches us.

Why don't we exclusevily use our own brains to live in the best possible way? Why do we have to follow some rules we didn't make ourselves?

[miguel]

Nacho, the morals in the Bible can change according to several factors, but the main one comes from the reader point of view.
Some things are pretty clear though, take the life of Jesus. How many standards of reasonable and sensible social awareness were accepted by us just by following his short period of permanence among us?
You can very well say that you can be and do good things without knowing him but you would be lying to yourself because Jesus is a part of your existence. Only the Beatles were bigger than him!... another joke made by a Christian
By the way, are you claiming that churches do use some kind of supernatural source?
Because they never used any on me. I choose to accept God and wasn't told to.

Vince, yes the Catholic Church does send hundreds of people to spread faith but according to what I've heard from people that were actually there, whence they get there the main focus is to give just the most simple and basic things that we consider ours by right! Medicaments, food and water come first, the reward sometimes is that some starving people do accept it as an act from God followers. See, it's not that easy.
For example, I travel to your country and find you in a desperate situation and help you.
It's easier for you to thank me than thank God although the inspiration that moved me there was His.
Missionaries are even regarded by the society I live like outcast and lost people that try to absolve their crimes and frustrations running away from the country. It's a very complicated situation.
You would had to sit and talk to one of this guys to actually know what they go through when they experience things that we can only read about it.
Meaning, the people on those countries just want to be fed and cured first because their intellectual state is far different than us. If they start to be religious or not is just a big question mark.

Akatosh, again I agree with you but as I mentioned before responsibility is the key word here.

SSH, speaking in behalf of the Catholic Church and what I'm aware of, some things are changing slowly.
Priests are seen very much like normal human beings to them, only they devoted themselves to serve the Church. Of course they can feel love for other persons of the same gender, and they do need sex as any other beings. The step to allow them to marry is on to be taken carefully and responsibly as many countries are still at what is called "lower levels" meaning some classical existence is still very established as the right way to be.
So, things do take time around here.    

[Vince Twelve]

Miguel, you don't need to defend missionaries from me!  I said they do good things and I had nothing bad to say about them!  I think that no matter why someone does it, bringing medicine or food to people who need it is pretty much always a good thing!   Please don't think that I was disagreeing with you.

Even in my first question, I wasn't passing any judgement on them!  Just asking what people think the conversion rate is with them, and attaching no value to it either way!  My third point was just pointing out what I see as a flaw in the internal logic of some people's (not yours!) religious beliefs and was not passing any judgments on the good that missionaries across the world achieve.



And though I understand the sentiment, "Star Wars Fanclubs" do not usually support charities or help out developing countries (As far as I know!  It would be pretty sweet if an army of Storm Troopers descended on Rwanda to build a school though.)

[Khris]

How many standards of reasonable and sensible social awareness were accepted by us just by following his short period of permanence among us?
You can very well say that you can be and do good things without knowing him but you would be lying to yourself because Jesus is a part of your existence.

Are you saying that anybody who lived before Jesus or anybody who lived/lives after him but didn't/doesn't know about him and his teachings has no way of ever coming up with standards of reasonable and sensible social awareness?

[miguel]

Vince, I don't think you were disagreeing with me or that you were judging them, I just got carried away and developed my idea. Maybe others don't realize the effort those guys do and I guess what I wrote was to others as well.

Khris, I'm saying that it's impossible to (I dare to say 100%)  all of our members to not know that Jesus message was good or even to not know who he was or did.

[MrColossal]

What about these guys?

http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/080624-amazon-tribe.html

Not trying to be snarky, I'm serious, what about those guys?

[Nacho]

Khris, I'm saying that it's impossible to (I dare to say 100%)  all of our members to not know that Jesus message was good or even to not know who he was or did.

Probably, but... Was it an original, a new message with a big "This message is inspired by God" notice on it?

Simple answer: NO.

It's like the mediums stuff... They always come with something stupid, like "Your father forgives you" or "He says that we must love each others"...

Dude, passing way is not only a crap, it also turns you into an idiot.

No medium came with the secret message of Houdini or the sollution of the Fermat Theorem. Any "Inspired by GODTM" brought to us something really good an usefull?

No.

P.S: Great photo, Eric... It's interesting and disturbing at the same time... The ladies in the pic turn me on a bit...   

[miguel]

MrColossal, that picture was meant to me?
What about it? What do you want me to say that I haven't before?
They never heard about Jesus? Maybe yes. I've explained myself some post ago.

Nacho, you have just reached my point when I say that religion is extremely hard to spread on new generations like yourself that need some flashy TV ad to believe in something.
Dude, passing away (was this what you meant?) is some serious stuff that I hope you don't have to see it before your eyes.
And yes, God inspired and still inspires great men through history. What they have done with that inspiration is a different story.

[Nacho]

Hehe... The usual "you are too idiot to understand the God concept" argument. Good!

And ironic, coming from someone who believes that Earth was created 6,000 years ago by a funny white bearded guy...

[Khris]

miguel:
You didn't answer my question:

Are you saying that anybody who lived before Jesus or anybody who lived/lives after him but didn't/doesn't know about him and his teachings has no way of ever coming up with standards of reasonable and sensible social awareness?
(I'm not talking about other forum members here, you know? I'm talking about the ancient greeks, the romans who lived BC, every other old culture that wasn't based on anarchy, or, to give more contemporary examples, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus who've never heard of Jesus.)

MrColossal, that picture was meant to me?
What about it? What do you want me to say that I haven't before?
They never heard about Jesus? Maybe yes. I've explained myself some post ago.

No you didn't.

Nacho, you have just reached my point when I say that religion is extremely hard to spread on new generations like yourself that need some flashy TV ad to believe in something.
Dude, passing away (was this what you meant?) is some serious stuff that I hope you don't have to see it before your eyes.
And yes, God inspired and still inspires great men through history. What they have done with that inspiration is a different story.

It's not the flashy ads that are missing, it's logic, coherence and reliance on common sense.
Also, attributing the deeds of great men to god belittles all of humanity. While we are insignificant apes rushing through the vast emptiness of space on a rock, we still have accomplished great things. WE, humans.

[Akatosh]

Even better than that, Nacho. It's "the new media poisons people's minds!!"

[miguel]

Nacho, you're not an idiot although you do throw some grenades and then leave the scene and hide to see the outcome.
I never pointed out that I follow the white-bearded guy creating earth 6.000 years ago theory. Don't put every Christian in the same pot because I don't do that to you.

Khris, I'm sorry if I did lead you to think that I don't consider Men capable of great achievements or able to be "good". I don't think that way, although God revealing Himself to us and the teachings of Jesus did and still contribute to Humanity being better.
And why do you think Muslims or Hindus don't know Jesus?

Akatosh, the new media does poison our minds more than ever. It's the 3rd power and it is a subject on universities across the world. Actually, the new media could end it all in days. Not God, because he doesn't exists, right?