[flash]

a major point missed here is that nobody is attacking anyone, or belittling anyone. what somebody feels somebody is saying about them personally is determined entirely by them. you are in control of whether or not you feel belittled, and you should look inward to determine why you feel that way.



to the questions above. no - not sure. energy cannot be destroyed, but that does not mean anything specific. yes.

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[Lear35A]

I personally don't feel attacked or belittled. I'm quite comfortable with things. Whether or not some of the comments and words in previous posts are derogatory as far as the Forum Rules is concerned is only determined by the Administrator not me.

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[flash]

to be derogatory, to the point of being against forum rules, the comments would really have to be directed at an individual. comments made here have been directed toward something very different.



it would be no different than saying that i would not trust somebody who believed in santa claus

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[Bulti]

"Sorry to be late chiming in. Who would have thought that mentioning a fill up of 93 octane at under $3 a gallon could get that 2,000 year old pastime of bashing Christians (broadened to include all religions) going on a forum devoted to an exceptional GT built in Germany in the late '90s?"



I guess the lord works in mysterious ways? Lol



You say that Christians haven't been treated very nice, I say the non-believers have been tortured, raped and murdered just as much. Even today.



There's really no need to get irritated, you are most welcome to try to defend your own opinions, they are just as valid as mine. And who says I'm not interested in why you became religious? It would be most interesting to hear why a cleary educated individual as yourself believes in things as fantastic as the stories in the Bible.



As for the 'denigrating' attitude of some of us towards religion or the religious: you should have seen the hardcore orthodox Jews looking down on me and my friend 'infideles' when going on a trip to Israel earlier this year... They acted like the rest of us were made of thin air. In fact ingoring someone is worse than hating a person. Hating at least imply feelings.



I'm definitely not hiding anything under no guise. I'm trying to understand what makes perfectly sane and intelligent people believe in fantasy.



So, by all means, and without me being intentionally offensive, tell your story Lance.

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[Rap]

I was raised Catholic and taught to believe that only Catholics can go to heaven and all others are pagans who will go to hell. This always seemed sort of harsh for my Mom who is Lutheran. So I've always felt a wee bit of sympathy for all those poor souls out there who aren't Catholic and a lot for my Mom.

It's not virgins its Virginians!

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[ds968]

[quote name='Bulti' timestamp='1417242432' post='164075']

I'm trying to understand what makes perfectly sane and intelligent people believe in fantasy..[/quote]

I think referring to it as a " neurological disorder " as most brain function specialists in the medical profession have labeled it ( I'm not talking about psychiatrists or psychologists, those people are often more nuttier than their patients, lol ) , is a bit harsh and almost suggests it's a mental ilness. I think calling it a neurological difference is a more appropriate term. And it's completely unrelated to a person's intellect or sanity, but very much a condition of human nurture, which eventually evolves into part of human nature. The brain has the capability to compartmentalize, and does , numerous aspects of its function; religious belief is just another facet , albeit a very common one influenced by culture, family, tradition, etc etc. I think it's amusing though that for every Christian who believes deeply and unconditionally in " God " and the tales stemming from the bible , there is one Hindi that believes just as deeply in the existence of gods in quasi-human/animal form with multiple arms , trunk of an elephant, and blue naked boobs . Ha, see how I return everything to boobs ?! Shows you what I believe in !! And for every Hindi who believes in those creatures, there are as many other people around the world that believe in entirely different divinities , spirits, so on and so forth that gives them a foundation, gives their lives meaning, motivates them to do whatever it is they do daily , and as mentioned above if all of that is for the good of humankind there's absolutely nothing wrong with FAITH. Not to be confused with organized religion which I think is the biggest fraud perpetrated in human history.

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[ds968]

To throw a curve ball into the topic, here's a tangent : my father was Roman Catholic, my mother was Greek Orthodox ( married for 60 years in spite of arguing every year about the actual date of Easter LOL , aka Jesus's resurrection ) My dad was leaning more toward being somewhat agnostic, my mother much more of a devout believer . I remember we were all watching a Carl Sagan TV program on the universe where among other things the mention of extra-terrestrial life was made . My mother immediately dismissed that entire notion as pure fantasy and found it to be ridiculous, absurd . Yet she found the fairy tale stories in Orthodox scriptures which were brainwashed into her psyche from childhood, to be more plausible. And my mom had a PhD, so not a dummy or insane, by any stretch. So according to her and billions of other people " God " made the entire universe; the trillions and trillions of planets, suns, galaxies, etc. but somehow Earth is the only place in this infinite universe where any life forms exist. She believed in angels, in ghosts and similar spirits "living" among us , so apparently that was perfectly reasonable to her, but anything out there in outer space is simply for decor ...probably for God to give us something pretty to gaze at night :-) :-). Just sayin' .....

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[flash]

wouldn't it be funny if the two merged? if god were an ET, this whole thing were just a biology experiment, and jesus was just a test tube baby?

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[ds968]

[quote name='flash' timestamp='1417281975' post='164082']wouldn't it be funny if the two merged? if god were an ET, this whole thing were just a biology experiment, and jesus was just a test tube baby?[/quote]



Actually a hypothesis embraced by many, including a large segment of the scientific community - not the test tube Jesus part, lol , but rather that some of the so called miraculous appearances, divine power occurrences, angels and multiple references to the "sky" throughout ancient history as the place from where all of these Gods originated and where many apparently reside , is given some credence vis-a-vis that possibility of ET visits as an explanation for the genesis of the stories which were subsequently embellished and converted into religious tales.

And reference to the anal probe perepetrated by aliens on all the abductees who claim they have been victimized by ETs, can be traced all the way back to the Bible ; wasn't that what happened frequently in Sodom and Gomorrah ? ahem, ahem ( cough ) :-) :-).

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[968Syncro]

[quote name='flash' timestamp='1417281975' post='164082']

if god ........

[/quote]

Which god? Mankind has invented something like 2,700 - 3,000 gods. We still have many dozens, maybe hundreds today. From what I was told (because I also spent lots of time in church), Catholics still have 3: the father, the son, and the holy ghost. I never understood this and was not useful for me, I guess because it was forced. Church should be a two-way communication, there should be a time during the homily when the priest says "now are there any questions"?

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[flash]

lol - yeah - i know.



interesting theory, and would explain a lot. if , for example, we were to launch an expedition to another planet, would would have a specialized team of people, each responsible for their own area of expertise. we would have an oceanographer, a physicist, a biologist, yada yada (interesting parallel to the greek, egyptian, and mayan gods)



then, we would likely leave a smaller team behind, and they could periodically check up on things, and maybe even make appearances from time to time. given that the indigenous population would likely not be able to distinguish one of us from another, they would likely confuse them, and think each visit were from the same person, or at least confuse them enough to blur the distinction. if the population were primitive enough, it would be easy to mistake our technology for miracles, and think us gods.



if we were trying to develop a population or species as a part of an experiment, we would of course need to control it, and then.....................



not so far fetched. almost every religion makes mention of visits and such. lots of parallels in references amongst ancient civilizations too.



just as plausible as any other story.

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[ds968]

There is only ONE God : it's Allah . Any other gods are fake . ( I say that with great conviction ...because I like my head to remain squarely on my neck, so if any ISIS guys out there own 968s and happen to lurk on this forum, take note of my conviction ! ). p.s. also, no interest in those 72 virgins , way too much trouble - give me one experienced, uninhibited woman and that's just fine with me :-)

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[flash]

lol - wipe that stuff off your nose

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[ds968]

Infidel !

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[WJH]

Interesting that 84 percent of the world has a faith. I guess that is a lot of delusional and mixed up folks believing in fairy tales.



Hopefully, they will get educated soon and join the 16 percent that have found the truth. We live, we die, and we are done. It is like you never existed.



Question, how can you vote for anyone that has faith? Don't you question their judgement? There must be something wrong with them. They seem perfectly sane and yet believe in all the crazy stuff. I don't think you should trust them.



Oh, I didn't make up the 84%



http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/wate...rd-are-ch/

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[ds968]

Did you also consider that the overwhelming majority of that 84 % of religious people live in abject poverty and misery ? That the most religious nations also happen to have the highest rate of crime, are ridden with disease, social unrest, etc, whereas the least religious nations have, and have consistently had a higher standard of living ( referring to the Northern European countries ) , and poll after poll year after year reveals them to be also the most content of all people ? Or is the explanation for the 84% of the world who lives in poverty all part of God's mysterious master plan, which is for those people to ultimately prepare to enjoy afterlife by paying their dues / suffering in the real life ? So don't you conclude that having faith in something imaginary , magical and fantastic is what gives their lives meaning and the only thing that keeps them sane and keeps going everyday ? What else is there ? And faith is contagious because as we all said here, it makes people feel that they have a greater purpose than just to exist, so it's not just the downtrotten masses that are religious but this belief spreads to people from all walks of life. As to why we vote for religious people, well in this country we don't really have much choice, LOL. Hey, I voted for Reagan , twice , and would still vote for him if he were alive today...and he was a religious man. Furthermore, no one said religious people are necessarily kooks , or can't function perfectly well in any other respect, a lot of us merely object to those religious people in positions of power and influence who base their actions and decisions that affect millions of lives, on their religious bias and publicly profess that bias as the reason for why they do what they do. That, I find about as kooky as it gets..

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[Rap]

The act of faith and believing in something is perhaps the strongest expression of free will. For people living in poverty across the world it is the only possession they have that they have decided on and can not be taken away from them by outside elements. The fact that it exists in more developed and educated countries in the world is merely again an expression of free will. This expression of free will is exercised by both rich and poor the world over. Why? Faith. This faith has been around and practiced in one form or another since the dawn of time . From a historical level the length of time faith of one form or another has been expressed would seem to indicate that the need for faith is either ingrained in the human specie or is one darn peculiar fact of life. The fact that some believe and some don't is again merly expression of free will.



One of the primary tenants of the founding of this country was freedom of religion. In AA there is a belief in a higher power. While many chaffe at this part of recovery, and that higher power could be a rock, those that embrace it have a higher likelihood of successful recovery. In fact although it can't be scientifically proven, this one belief if you will seems to be the only thing that really works for most as they follow and live the steps. Again this is a belief that crosses class lines and is found worldwide.



I guess my point here is that beliefs can be powerful and can quite often defy explanation. Luck of course is something else that quite frankly is believed and embraced by most.

A politician who uses a belief in something as a basis for making a decision strikes me as a better person than one who uses polls to make decisions because that person seems to be incapable of making personal judgement.

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[Bulti]

Why should dying be more complicated than just your brain ceasing to function? No more thoughts or wondering what comes next. I find it pretty typical and even a bit arrogant that humans think they are greater than death. A dead cow is essentially nothing more than a pile of meat and bones, and so are we when our intellect is gone.



As a side note, I can understand that relatives can find a great deal of comfort in knowing that their loved one has gone to a 'better place', instead of just becoming worm food.



Imo

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[968Syncro]

If the character, morality, ethics, and behavior of U.S. politicians is rooted in their religion, then I suggest avoiding membership in those religions.

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.

[ds968]

[quote name='Rap' timestamp='1417353549' post='164103']The act of faith and believing in something is perhaps the strongest expression of free will. For people living in poverty across the world it is the only possession they have that they have decided on and can not be taken away from them by outside elements. The fact that it exists in more developed and educated countries in the world is merely again an expression of free will. This expression of free will is exercised by both rich and poor the world over. Why? Faith. This faith has been around and practiced in one form or another since the dawn of time . From a historical level the length of time faith of one form or another has been expressed would seem to indicate that the need for faith is either ingrained in the human specie or is one darn peculiar fact of life. The fact that some believe and some don't is again merly expression of free will.

nt.[/quote]



Precisely ! Religion stemmed from the human NEED for faith ; dogmatic belief in something purely imaginary to justify that which can't be understood or reconciled or to create comfort in oneself. And that's what I have said in my posts ( only not as eloquently as you stated it here.. ) But then again English is my fourth language, so I have an excuse, lol..

Partial Post: Please Login or Register to read the full post.