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Religion IS crazy!

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pavilion103 said:
The disease is obvious for all to see.

If your worst most secret thoughts about those around you were put on a projector for all to see you would struggle to face those people again.

Same with me. Same with everyone.

You don't get labelled good because someone else is worse. If you are caught speeding once you've broken the law and are guilty.

Of course there are varying degrees but we are all guilty.
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Yes, I am guilty.
But it's not my Law.
I was not consulted.
Once I was caught speeding once.
Then subsequently, I was caught once again.

Getting to be an expensive habit.
Like I said, not my Law.

On the road ... Villain.
On the track ... Hero!!
 
Value Collector said:
Says the guy who has never been able to either logically or empirically prove any part of his mythical fantasy world view.
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Well Pav has provided what he considers to be proof by using negation of other possibilities. His "proof", like many other religious drones, is based on a process of elimination that invokes strong confirmation bias.

God exists because...

- Life can't come from non-life - except God itself who is a transcendent being and is the causative force behind creating life from non-life.

- Evolution theory is false, unproven science - But the pseudoscience of Intelligent Design, the basis of which relies on the thoroughly discredited concept of irreducible complexity, is true because it requires a creator.

- People are born evil, being the spawn of a sinful Adam and Eve, and without the wisdom inscribed in iron-age scrolls, have no reason to be moral - hence God needs to exist for reasons of moral clarity and direction (I am paraphrasing here but this is the general thrust of the argument)

- The Bible and Jesus say so and all of the Bible is true because God inspired every word of it (without actually writing it himself) and we all know that Jesus was just another manifestation of God because he walked on water, brought people back from the dead, and in his own way, cheated death himself. In summary then, all other religions are false.

- Etc. (BTW, I think the above to be quite a fair assessment of what many Christians sincerely believe)

Most of the arguments Pav has put forward here revolve around these major themes and the inerrancy of writings in iron-age scrolls. More rational minds easily recognize the fallacy of faith-based assumptions embodied in such argumentation but this is where the problem of reasoning with the religious becomes acute.

The religious have no substantive evidence for the existence of their particular version of a sky God so rather than logically and critically examining their beliefs, they invoke faith-based rationale to justify them. The religious do this because they are heavily invested emotionally, psychologically and socially in their religious beliefs. That they are captives to religious dogma and live out lives of servitude to religious mythology becomes a virtue to them. Breaking free from such programming, in many cases starting from the cradle, can be extremely difficult and it's important to recognize this. Religion with its promise of eternal life is just as intoxicating and mind altering as many drugs, the dependency on either is always sad to see and a blight on human progress and potential.
 
pavilion103 said:
If we put mine or yours or anyone's thoughts up on a projector for all to see we would see how truly selfish and wicked we all are at the core. Some of the thoughts we have thought about those closest to us are so embarrassing and bad that if shown on a screen in front of everyone we knew we would run out of the room in disgrace.
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What a load of absolute tripe! If you have some compulsion to conclude that you are wicked and selfish, then that's up to you. But you do not have the right to impose your delusional beliefs on other people.
I don't care if you want to believe in a god as long as you don't go round insisting that others subscribe to the same nonsense.

If I or anyone else were to start a thread suggesting everyone here is an evil being, in need of forgiveness for wickedness, there would be an outcry. Joe would be absolutely entitled to ban me for inappropriate posting.

But you seem to think that, because you do just that in the name of your damn religion, it's quite OK.
For me at least, it absolutely is not.:(:(:(:(:(:(
 
Yes pavs assertions and beliefs are insulting delusional and immature
But that is what you get when you follow an archaic doctrine. Maybe Pav have you done a few new units in your doctrine study and now trying out the 'project your thoughts thereby proving sinfulness' angle?
Pav is your work in here part of your 'missionary' contribution to this world?
 
lindsayf said:
Yes pavs assertions and beliefs are insulting delusional and immature
But that is what you get when you follow an archaic doctrine. Maybe Pav have you done a few new units in your doctrine study and now trying out the 'project your thoughts thereby proving sinfulness' angle?
Pav is your work in here part of your 'missionary' contribution to this world?
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Pav is a good example of a fanatical Christian crackpot whose been so completely brainwashed by religion that he’s lost his grip on reality.
We’re ‘all in the same boat’, according to him – all selfish and wicked regardless of what sort of people we are, what we’ve done with our lives, and what we do for other people.

I hope Pav watches ‘Four Corners’ on ABC tonight – it should give him a much needed reality check about the sort of behavior that really does make some people selfish and wicked.
 
Nevertheless, from my personal experience of having been brought up a Christian, I can honestly say that the good far outweighed the bad in all the church communities that I was involved in. Bunyip

I appreciate your honesty Bunyip. The above sentence is all I've ever tried to argue on this forum.

I am a practical and pragmatic Christian. If you want to go to church great, if you don't fine. I will not ram it down your throat. I will however burr up at those people who refuse to see ANY good in religion at all (specifically in a Christian environment in Australia). Only because my experience has been - like yours - an overwhelmingly positive one.

However I take strong offence to the post of Pav. I almost feel, as a supporter of religion, as if I have to apologise for his position and post. From my perspective, people that hold these types of strong fundamental religious views are in the minority and are a million miles away from the "bread and butter mum and dad" church goers. From my experience as well it is these type that are so wrapped up in religious radicalism that they too busy (or unwilling) to work on community/volunteer/charity events that so many of the churches support.

As a side issue - I watched Four Corners last night and I have my own take on it. The ABC has been saying for years now that the decline in church going numbers is due to the repulsion people have to the Church's response to sexual abuse. I would strongly argue against that. Sure it may have played a part - but the much bigger picture is that people find the Church completely irrelevant to them. It plays into the ABC argument that it is all about the abuse......but that is only part of the story in my opinion.

Duckman
 
Duckman#72 said:
Nevertheless, from my personal experience of having been brought up a Christian, I can honestly say that the good far outweighed the bad in all the church communities that I was involved in. Bunyip

I appreciate your honesty Bunyip. The above sentence is all I've ever tried to argue on this forum.

I am a practical and pragmatic Christian. If you want to go to church great, if you don't fine. I will not ram it down your throat. I will however burr up at those people who refuse to see ANY good in religion at all (specifically in a Christian environment in Australia). Only because my experience has been - like yours - an overwhelmingly positive one.

However I take strong offence to the post of Pav. I almost feel, as a supporter of religion, as if I have to apologise for his position and post. From my perspective, people that hold these types of strong fundamental religious views are in the minority and are a million miles away from the "bread and butter mum and dad" church goers. From my experience as well it is these type that are so wrapped up in religious radicalism that they too busy (or unwilling) to work on community/volunteer/charity events that so many of the churches support.

As a side issue - I watched Four Corners last night and I have my own take on it. The ABC has been saying for years now that the decline in church going numbers is due to the repulsion people have to the Church's response to sexual abuse. I would strongly argue against that. Sure it may have played a part - but the much bigger picture is that people find the Church completely irrelevant to them. It plays into the ABC argument that it is all about the abuse......but that is only part of the story in my opinion.

Duckman
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I keep promising myself that I won't post here anymore.
But I have to say Duckman, you give good post.

For me, it was the Vietnam Conflagration.
 
Duckman#72 said:
I am a practical and pragmatic Christian. If you want to go to church great, if you don't fine. I will not ram it down your throat. I will however burr up at those people who refuse to see ANY good in religion at all (specifically in a Christian environment in Australia). Only because my experience has been - like yours - an overwhelmingly positive one.
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My Position has never been that the various religions don't do any good. My position has always been that they don't do any good that can't be achieved in other ways, and since the bad side effects are very bad, I think it should be avoided. Like DDT, has many positive attributes, Its negative attributes outweigh the good, and since its positves effects can be achieved in other ways, we avoid DDT.

You mentioned that you yourself find the extremist parts of religion distatseful, The problem is extremism is inevitable in any religion, Offcourse the large majority will not be extremists, but the very nature of religions basically guarantees a certain amount of extremism, As long as there are moderates professing the virtues of the holy texts, there will be extremists taking the texts literally, and you can't win an arguement with a fundamentalist if you begin the arguement by agreeing that their texts are the word of a god, and faith is a pathway to truth.

Even in the "Nice Positive church groups" that you have been involved are probably some nasty side effects of religion, whether it be anti gay views that are being prolonged by the religious texts, a distrust of atheists or other groups simply because we were not raise to believe the same myths as them, guys like pav are not as rare as you think.

All the people in the below video are probably comsidered nice, good people by their churchs, but their religion has caused them to think really nasty things about atheists just because we don't believe their nonsense.

 
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I can completely appreciate the positions of both Duckman and Value Collector above. Over the years Duckman has participated in many discussions about religion and never once been aggressive or caused offence to anyone afaik. Remarks about the ever increasing number of ducklings have been taken in good spirit.:)

Last night I watched the first part of the 4 Corners program. It seemed largely a rehash of much that had already been covered. I found myself almost feeling sympathetic toward the Catholic Church, much as I absolutely despise its cover-up of the vile abuse by so many of its priests and brothers. Once the ABC has decided they have it in for an individual or an organisation, it seems they will - metaphorically - continue to kick someone who has long since capitulated.

We have the Royal Commission happening. Seems to me no part of the church is being spared in the rigor of this enquiry, so the ABC's continued 'revelations' seem gratuitous. Others will see it differently.
 
Duckman#72 said:
However I take strong offence to the post of Pav. I almost feel, as a supporter of religion, as if I have to apologise for his position and post. From my perspective, people that hold these types of strong fundamental religious views are in the minority and are a million miles away from the "bread and butter mum and dad" church goers. From my experience as well it is these type that are so wrapped up in religious radicalism that they too busy (or unwilling) to work on community/volunteer/charity events that so many of the churches support.
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While Pav's remarks pertaining to the depravity of the human psyche and our "sinful" nature has generated a strong negative response here, doctrinally he is not a fringe dwelling fundamentalist on this point. Christianity thrives on the notion that we are sinners in need of redemption, filthy vessels consumed by desires of the flesh, wicked to the core and lost (going to hell) without the cross. You can try and soften this line and put a different spin on it but it's at the very core of the Christian message. Many Christians may indeed chose to downplay this inconvenient truth about their religion but evangelists use this line to great effect and worst of all it's taught to children.

If someone claiming to be a Christian finds Pav's statements repulsive then they don't clearly understand one of the core themes of Christianity.


Value Collector said:
You mentioned that you yourself find the extremist parts of religion distatseful, The problem is extremism is inevitable in any religion, Offcourse the large majority will not be extremists, but the very nature of religions basically guarantees a certain amount of extremism, As long as there are moderates professing the virtues of the holy texts, there will be extremists taking the texts literally, and you can't win an arguement with a fundamentalist if you begin the arguement by agreeing that their texts are the word of a god, and faith is a pathway to truth.
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Indeed, many religious moderates seem unaware that by declaring strong belief in religious myth based on bad evidence (faith) they give sanction to fundamentalist and literalist elements, who revel in the purity of their interpretation of iron-age scrolls and the edicts therein, to stake a claim to being truer to the faith.
 
FxTrader said:
While Pav's remarks pertaining to the depravity of the human psyche and our "sinful" nature has generated a strong negative response here, doctrinally he is not a fringe dwelling fundamentalist on this point.
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I completely agree. "Doctrinally" he is not a fundamentalist, but when viewed against the position of modern day Christianity he is. Religion is full of contradictions and remains an enigma. A puzzling conundrum that I don't fully understand - even as a attending Catholic. I like the parts that relate to my life, I encourage my family to live to the values held up by the Church, I enjoy the structure that the church plays in my life, I certainly agree with and support the Christian education my kids are afforded. Do I live in fear of eternal damnation? No. Do I believe in slavery? No! Do I cover myself in vipers to test my faith? No thanks:cautious:

FxTrader said:
If someone claiming to be a Christian finds Pav's statements repulsive then they don't clearly understand one of the core themes of Christianity.
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You've misunderstood my point. My whole argument was "live and let live". People who are religious should be treated with respect and tolerance. Referring to religious beliefs as brainwashed myths, fairy stories, and old wives tales is disrespectful, dismissive and intolerant. I also believe people have a right not to believe in religion. What I found "repulsive" (your word not mine) was Pav's condescending and superior position in suggesting that everyone was wicked to the core and need their souls saving. I found it just as offensive, judgemental and unnecessary.

If you want to then say that I am not a "true Christian" go ahead. Religion is a very complex and personal experience. I'm sorry that I don't fit nicely into your box Fx.

Duckman
 
Personally I think he Buddhists have got it right.

Reincarnation and Karma. You get back what you give out.

You don't need to believe in any God, and your path to enlightenment is your own design.

It would save a lot of trouble if people lived by that philosophy.
 
SirRumpole said:
Personally I think he Buddhists have got it right. Reincarnation and Karma. You get back what you give out. You don't need to believe in any God, and your path to enlightenment is your own design. It would save a lot of trouble if people lived by that philosophy.
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Except people don't always get back what they give out e.g the killer who gets off and is never caught.
Or the loving family who get killed in a communist regime.

Reincarnation.... There is no evidence for that.

But I do admit it is a great feel good philosophy and does contain some powerful truths.
 
And lol @ my "superior" positions.

Putting myself in the basket that I am inherently sinful and desperately need a savior to be righteous before God, with zero merit of my own, is the complete opposite of a "superior" position. It is the most humbling opinion possible.
 
SirRumpole said:
That's a fine statement for someone who provides no evidence of his God :rolleyes:
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Firstly even if it were so that I've provided no evidence for God then why criticize me for providing no evidence, yet hold your own view with no evidence?
Why is it wrong for me to provide no evidence yet ok for you to do the same?

Secondly. I have provided much evidence and have seen very little for opposing views. People seem to think that holding atheist views requires no evidence for the inconsistencies of their world views.
But I here this....hey "one day with infinite time and infinite resources science will support the atheist view....that I hold prior to having no evidence for a self existent universe...."
 
pavilion103 said:
Why is it wrong for me to provide no evidence yet ok for you to do the same?
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What is wrong is attacking other people's beliefs for not having evidence when you have no evidence for your own beliefs.

Reincarnation makes more sense to me than the prospect that your future life in Heaven is decided on simply whether you choose to believe in God, and only the God that your particular religion believes in.

Life is a learning experience, and I see no reason why future and past lives can't be as well. Sometimes our bad actions rebound on us in this life, sometimes in others. I see no logical problem with that.
 
SirRumpole said:
What is wrong is attacking other people's beliefs for not having evidence when you have no evidence for your own beliefs.

Reincarnation makes more sense to me than the prospect that your future life in Heaven is decided on simply whether you choose to believe in God, and only the God that your particular religion believes in.

Life is a learning experience, and I see no reason why future and past lives can't be as well. Sometimes our bad actions rebound on us in this life, sometimes in others. I see no logical problem with that.
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It's merely opinion. Even in your post you've stated no evidence. Other than "it feels right to me."

I don't know why people get so defensive when someone questions their life philosophy. If it is truth that we are seeking then truth is exclusive by definition. Truth needs to be supported by evidence.
You have every right to hold that view, but it doesn't make it right or wrong just because you have the right to hold it.

There is strong evidence (as is apparent when researched with even a little objectivity) that Christ resurrected. Therefore it is Him who I will listen to about the purpose of life, life after death etc.

The views I post are not even my views. They are Jesus' views. I have no idea myself. No one does. I trust the one who is most reliable. Any issues anyone has with that particular worldview has to take it up with Jesus, not me.


We make exclusive claims all the time with all topics. If we see contradictions between views, we point them out. But with life philosophies people think that "if you say I'm wrong, then that's terrible." Everyone has the RIGHT to hold whatever view they want, but it doesn't make the view itself correct.

I'm not posting aggressively. I don't dislike anyone here. I'm simply stating my view. And as with every single other thing in life, truth is exclusive. Everyone can believe in it - it isn't exclusive in that it excludes people from it. It is exclusive in that, other contradictory views are not true.

Like I said, not because I said it.... but because the only one who has conquered death has said it....
 
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