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Religion IS crazy!

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SirRumpole said:
Maybe you just aren't meek enough

:)
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Yeh, could be......'the meek shall inherit the earth', etc etc.

Boys boarding school from the age of 13 taught me that the meek get trampled on, and if you want to avoid getting trampled then you'd better learn to be assertive and stick up for yourself.
 
bunyip said:
Ever thought about the The Lord's Prayer? Like most people brought up as Christians, I learnt to recite the prayer ‘parrot fashion’ during my childhood. I never really thought about what it meant, I never examined it critically to see if it made sense, I was never challenged to do so by my parents, my Sunday school teachers, or by any minister of my church.
Now, as a former Christian, I present this critique of the Lord’s prayer from the perspective of an ex-Christian who isn’t afraid to depart from the Christian thinking that was drummed into me during childhood.
If anyone on this forum sees it differently to me, then by all means disagree with me respectfully and state your own views of the Lord’s prayer. Indeed, I’m posting this here in the hope that it will generate discussion on the topic.
The words in bold are the Lords Prayer. The words in brackets are my comments.

The Lord's Prayer

Our Father, which art in heaven, (‘Our father’?? He/she/it isn’t my father or anyone else’s. ‘Which art in heaven’? We don’t even know if this heaven place exists or where it is if it does exist, therefore I think it’s presumptuous to declare that we know somebody who lives there.)

Hallowed be thy Name (‘Hallowed’ as in venerated, regarded with great respect. Read some of the biblical stories about the outrages and atrocities that God condoned, ordered, or carried out in person, then ask yourself if this character deserves to be regarded with great respect.)

Thy Kingdom come (Not sure about the meaning of this one....if it’s a suggestion that the kingdom of God is coming then it sure is taking a long time to get here. It’s another presumptious statement at best.)

Thy will be done on earth
As it is in heaven (If God’s will is as described in the Bible, then I’m damn pleased that most of us don’t do that sort of thing here on earth. And if that’s what happens in Heaven, then if it exists it can’t be a very nice place and there will be a lot of disappointed people when they get there.)

Give us this day our daily bread (Let’s face it, if you want your daily bread then you have to work for it – nobody gives it to you.)

And forgive us our trespasses (Fat chance of that – the bible has dozens of stories about this vengeful god who, far from forgiving people their trespasses, subjected them to the most brutal treatment for even minor indiscretions.)

As we forgive them that trespass against us (This one makes me laugh – since when does the average person forgive people who wrong them? Do we forgive people who steal our money, rape our sister or daughter, deceive us? Ask the Storm Financial victims if they forgive Cassamatis and ASIC.)

And lead us not into temptation (Another one that makes me laugh –we’re told that God started off the business of temptation by tempting Eve in the Garden of Eden. We’re constantly being tempted. Oh that’s right – it’s not God tempting us, it’s the devil!)

But deliver us from evil (Not much chance of this one happening either – God abandoned his chosen people, the Jews, to the evil of the Nazis, and he doesn’t treat the rest of us any better if we come up against evil of any kind. Don’t kid yourself that your God is going to fight on your side if you ever find youself with your back to the wall).

For thine is the kingdom (There’s that kingdom again – that magical, mythical place where everything is honey and roses!)

The power, and the glory (What power – I’ve never seen any evidence that any supernatural being has any power. What glory – about the only glory I can see in relation to God is when people glorify and worship him/her/it without knowing if what they’re worshipping actually exists.)

For ever and ever (Another presumption that has no known basis of fact. Forever is a long time – we don’t even know if a god exists, let alone that he has a kingdom that will be around forever and ever.)

Amen

(Amen indeed. No doubt I’ll cop some criticism for my forthright dissection of the Lords Prayer. But I wonder how many people have really thought about what it means, rather than just reciting it parrot-fashion without thinking about it.)
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lol, You just gave me a huge flash back from my childhood, I remember all the year 1 and 2 kids had to sit cross legged at junior parade and recite this, and that was a public school. I hope things have changed since the 80's.

They better not attempt to try this stuff when my kid goes to school.
 
Value Collector said:
lol, You just gave me a huge flash back from my childhood, I remember all the year 1 and 2 kids had to sit cross legged at junior parade and recite this, and that was a public school. I have things have changed since the 80's.

They better not attempt to try this stuff when my kid goes to school.
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I went to school in the 70's and we didn't bother with that stuff.

But the pollies say it in Parliament before every sitting day, so it's still well entrenched in our systems.
 
SirRumpole said:
I went to school in the 70's and we didn't bother with that stuff.

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I guess it comes down to the principle and teachers abusing their position of power to push their brand of religion onto the children in their care, People would go mental if a Muslim teacher started making kids do this.

Does parliament really do that? This is what I mean when we need a separation between church and state, Each member should be free to privately pray to which ever god they want before they sit, But making a prayer part of the official proceedings is wrong.
 
SirRumpole said:
I went to school in the 70's and we didn't bother with that stuff.

But the pollies say it in Parliament before every sitting day, so it's still well entrenched in our systems.
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I wonder how many of them have actually thought about what it means, or considered whether they agree with it. Not too many would be my guess.
 
bunyip said:
You think we can’t make up our own rules and guidelines for living decent lives, you feel that we need the guidance of God and religion to accomplish this. I see it rather differently. I’m damn pleased that we have the intelligence to use our judgment and common sense to formulate a code of ethics and moral behavior, rather than just blindly following some of the horrible instructions in the Bible.

It’s easy to cherry-pick the nice parts of the Bible, while ignoring the ugly parts. But the ugly parts are there as well, and should be considered along with the good parts when making an overall assessment of the value of the Bible and religion.
Would we really want to live the kind of life that would result from obeying every instruction the Bible gives us? I wouldn’t and I don't think you would either – I have no wish to be a murderer, a rapist, a subjugator of women, or a low-life who would sell his daughters into slavery.
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Very true. So many of the ultra religious say the bible should be taken literally, then spend most of their time cherry picking which parts to ignore.

One also has to ask what form of slavery they'd deign to be acceptable

In the Muslim world they're still trying to enforce the kind of laws from the Qur'an. Not so much cherry picking as just bat s&*t crazy interpretations.
 
noco said:
Rudd and Gillard allowed the flood of immigrants, mainly Muslims, to create division and hatred within the community.

The English, Italian and German immigrants who arrived in an orderly fashion in the late 40's and early 50's were mainly good tradesmen and mixed in well with our community.......I was a plumber in those days, I worked with many of them and I can not speak more highly of these people with both their attitude and their skills as tradesmen.
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Just exactly how was it Rudd and Gillard when the population ponzi really took off from when Howard was elected??

From the mouth of your most worshiple leader:

Australia needs a high level of immigration. I’m a high immigration man. I practiced that in Government. And one of the ways that you maintain public support for that is to communicate to the Australian people a capacity to control our borders and decide who and what people and when they come to this country.

To be honest, I can't ever recall Howard telling the Australian public he was for high immigration.
 

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Bunyip, have you ever seen stoning in Australia?
This country was built on Christian origins, in the law of the land, which runs through all our Courts etc.
As you know, all my posts have been Christian based, being a Catholic.

Now I have a question for you, if you don't mind answering,

-- is it God or Religion that you have a problem with?
People are still going to believe in God whether there is religion or not.

What is your answer for this?

Did your children attend a private school, if so, was it religious?

Thanks.
 
Tink said:
Bunyip, have you ever seen stoning in Australia?
This country was built on Christian origins, in the law of the land, which runs through all our Courts etc.
As you know, all my posts have been Christian based, being a Catholic.

Now I have a question for you, if you don't mind answering,

-- is it God or Religion that you have a problem with?
People are still going to believe in God whether there is religion or not.

What is your answer for this?

Did your children attend a private school, if so, was it religious?

Thanks.
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That's right Tink, we don't stone people because our values are not based on the bible, and taking a biblical approach would not make this nation better,
 
Tink said:
Bunyip, have you ever seen stoning in Australia?
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No I haven’t – because we have enough sense not to base our laws entirely on God’s word according to the Bible.
Tink said:
This country was built on Christian origins, in the law of the land, which runs through all our Courts etc.
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That’s what I was brought up to believe. But is it entirely true? Seems to me that for a country that was supposedly built on Christian origins, we didn’t get off to such a good start.
‘Thou shalt not steal’ was violated when the first Europeans to settle in Australia took the land from the aborigines.
‘Thou shalt not kill’ was violated when the European settlers slaughtered the aborigines.
‘Thou shalt not commit adultery’ was violated by the many white men who freely used the aboriginal women.
‘Treat other people as you would have them treat you’ was violated by all of the above actions, not to mention the shocking treatment of prisoners who were sent out to Australia for the pettiest of crimes such as stealing a loaf of bread because they were starving, or snaring a hare so that a man could feed his family.
Fortunately we’ve moved on from there and have established a constitution that’s based more or less on common sense and decency, both of which can be practiced with or without religion, and with or without a belief in any of the supernatural beings called gods.
Tink said:
-- is it God or Religion that you have a problem with?
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I have a problem with dishonesty - and blatant dishonesty and unrealistic claims are everywhere in anything to do with God and religion.
Tink said:
Did your children attend a private school, if so, was it religious?
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For two years my children attended a private Catholic school. We weren’t Catholics, but we believed that a private school education would benefit our kids. The Catholic school was the only private school in the small country town we lived near.
When we moved to another area, my children attended a private Presbyterian school. If we’d had access to private schools that were not owned/run by churches, we would certainly have sent our children to those schools.
Having said that, we have little if any complaint with the Presbyterian school - it had excellent academic and behavioral standards, and to our relief it didn’t come on too strong with the religious side of things.
The Catholic school was pretty good too, although we didn’t feel entirely comfortable with the way it was constantly ramming Catholicism down the kid’s throats.

All in all though, we had mostly positive experiences with the two church-based schools we were involved with.
 
Thanks for your reply, bunyip.

That’s what I was brought up to believe. But is it entirely true?

Yes it is true, and it is what we stand for.
If we all lived by those, what a perfect world it would be, and that is not singling out one or the other.

I am glad to hear you were happy with your children's schools.
The discipline is superior in the private system, yet again, speaks volumes, discipline, authority, compassion, order.

I know you have said good about the Church here also, and no one denies the bad that has happened as well, thanks.

I reviewed the Lord's Prayer long ago, and thanks for posting it, rings true for me.
 
Tink said:
Yes it is true, and it is what we stand for.
If we all lived by those, what a perfect world it would be, and that is not singling out one or the other.
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All of the "good" values you credit to Christianity, actual predate both bibles. They are not "Christian" values, They are secular human values, they are common across cultures all over the world and date back to pre history.

And as I said to Rumpole, who ever wrote the ten commandments did a lousy job, it's a pretty rubbish list, any thinking person could put together a better list, and as we continually point out, a lot of the other commandments are totally immoral.
 
Value Collector said:
Saying "I don't know", is more intellectually honest, than saying "I don't know, therefore god", that's the basic difference in our points of view.
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Hank Green from the Sci Show, explains why we all need to say "I don't know" more often. Great video.

 
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Humour and Ridicule are probably some of the best ways to address those who make public claims of knowing the unknowable or having divine revelation, and the English comedians seem to do it best.

Rowan's twist on the bible here shows it for what it really is.

 
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Although the earlier part is shocking, the way they try to get innocent children to fall from about the 6min mark onward is shameful. No question about it. Child abuse.
 
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bellenuit said:
Although the earlier part is shocking, the way they try to get innocent children to fall from about the 6min mark onward is shameful. No question about it. Child abuse.
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I remember during uni a deeply religious friend took me to something similar to this. I couldn't believe what was going on. It was like mass hysteria for 45 minutes. I spent most of my time trying to work out just how many were truly into this, and how many were just following the crowd.
 
bellenuit said:


Although the earlier part is shocking, the way they try to get innocent children to fall from about the 6min mark onward is shameful. No question about it. Child abuse.
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Parents who let their kids be subjected to this sort of thing are a disgrace.
Did you notice how he failed to have any effect on the tiny little kids of toddler age?

This reminds me of a hypnosis show I went to see once, where the bloke had dozens of people up on stage doing every crazy thing he told them to do.
 
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