This is where this forum falls down.

[consol]

That's what you evolutionists do. You don't believe there is any more to life than being born and dying, then you cease to exist. THAT sounds like living to die if you ask me.

You have it ever so slightly wrong here, it's not Evolutionists that believe we cease to exists when we die, that's the way Atheists see it.

But this is the bottom line for most religions, some people will not accept that we are just like all the other animals, they like to think,
WE ARE DIFFERENT, A GOD MADE US DIFFERENT, ANIMALS CEASE TO EXIST WHEN THEY DIE, BUT WE DON'T.

This is delusion taken to extremes, the refusal to grow up and face reality is what religion is all about,
IF I DON'T ADMIT IT OR THINK ABOUT IT, IT WON'T HAPPEN, I CAN CONVINCE MYSELF I WILL LIVE FOREVER.

And the wonderful thing is, IT WORKS, why does it work?? because you die believing it, and you never find out the truth,
and the people watching you die, believe you have gone to a better place, until it's their turn to die,
and so it goes on and on and on. It's the price we pay to die quietly.

And it would do no harm if we didn't let it effect our ONE AND ONLY LIFE, but we do, we waste this one thinking about the next.

Religion has got a lot to answer for, it has proven to be one of the worse thing ever devised by man.

 

[Psudopod]

Religion has got a lot to answer for, it has proven to be one of the worse thing ever devised by man.

So something that give comfort to the dying and those that know them; that gives faith in dark times; that provides answers in dark and uncertain times, you consider this one of the worse things ever devised? That people have used it to justify atrocities does not mean that religeon itself is an atrocity. That's like blaming the sword not the swordsman.

 

[thaumaturgy]

I apologize, you are right, not all evolutionists believe that...only about 99%.

Sorry Inan, but Psudopod is probably right. If I recall correctly the majority of Christians have little to no problem with evolution or are certainly not young earth literal creationists. So you will then have to take up afterlife considerations with other Christians.

According to a 2005 Pew Research Center poll, 70 percent of evangelical Christians believe that living beings have always existed in their present form, compared with 32 percent of Protestants and 31 percent of Catholics. (SOURCE)

(Emphasis added)

So what that appears to say is:

Majority of Christians (68% Protestant, 69% Catholics) appear to not be literal Young Earth creationists. (Caveat: this may take in a number of other beliefs such as Theistic evolution, or others I don't fully know about)

Fundamentalists (a minority of Christians) are largely Literal Creationist (and even then it strangley isn't 100%, it is 70%, which means we "evilutionist" might get another 30% from you True Believers?

Additional SOURCES worth looking at relating to a 1997 Gallup Poll:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_publi.htm
http://www.religioustolerance.org/ev_denom1.htm

 

[consol]

So something that give comfort to the dying and those that know them; that gives faith in dark times; that provides answers in dark and uncertain times, you consider this one of the worse things ever devised? That people have used it to justify atrocities does not mean that religeon itself is an atrocity. That's like blaming the sword not the swordsman.

So because religion is all in the mind and it brings the delusion of comfort during uncertain times, you need it?
why don't we go a step further and take drugs to deaden our reality?
we could administer them from birth to death and never need to worry about life ever again, no ups or downs,
or perfect the art of hypnosis, we could all live life hypnotised only to see the nice things.

Are you honestly saying we need religion to deaden the pains of life?
Why do we need something to stop us living life? live the good and the bad parts, live life, I do, I have no God, or any need for a God.

I suppose I should consider myself lucky I guess.

 

[thaumaturgy]

So because religion is all in the mind and it brings the delusion of comfort during uncertain times, you need it?
why don't we go a step further and take drugs to deaden our reality?
we could administer them from birth to death and never need to worry about life ever again, no ups or downs,
or perfect the art of hypnosis, we could all live life hypnotised only to see the nice things.

Are you honestly saying we need religion to deaden the pains of life?
Why do we need something to stop us living life? live the good and the bad parts, live life, I do, I have no God, or any need for a God.

I suppose I should consider myself lucky I guess.

In a sense you are lucky. Personally I think your suggestion is actually good that we attempt to take life as it comes. I think that is the goal. Unfortunately we all fall short of that (or most of us). I agree that a panacea that has no real utility other than to "make us feel good" with no reality to it is probably not the best. But most of us, even skeptics and atheist, often retreat into a "safe space" at times.

I am no gigantic Shakespeare fan, but I do like Hamlet's soliloquy.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream

For me this has been something I've felt (well, to be honest I never had to face the concept of killing my uncle for killing my dad and sleeping with my mom, but you get the point).

Sometimes reality is just too real. It's hard to face.

Sadly for me, at that time in my life when THESE words were the most true: "...To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks..." was precisely when I was a believer. A Christian. Of course my faith was sorely tested by a foe that appeared stronger; depression.

One of the things for me that put me more in your camp, Consol, than in others, is that part of the horrors that haunted me was an obsessive fear of doing the wrong thing in religion (formally called "scrupulosity", a subset of OCD). So for me jettisoning religion was a relief. It was necessary for me. And made more easy when assessed from a skeptical and logical direction.

But the other posters on here are right, religion can bring comfort and some measure of good to the life of the adherent. I find myself also in the camp of some of the "New Atheist" writers who point out that religion can be a catalyst to allow some to commit all manner of excess. Especially when it squelches thought and introspection.

But then even I today find myself harboring irrational thoughts, or grasping at some mental straws to hide behind when the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune come flying at me after a hard day.

Bravo for you to be able to take life as it comes, unvarnished. But not all are as strong. My hope is that I will be ever vigilant to not dive too deeply into delusions.

 

[Jadis40]

Hang on a second, this is a thing creationists and Christians try to do all of the time, what was this Jesus?
was he a God or a man? or was he both? or was he just a figment of some ones imagination?

Jesus was both - the Early Church Fathers, at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, declared that Jesus was fully human and fully divine.

From that time, this has been accepted by the widest segment of Christianity. The Catholics hold to it, as well as the Eastern Orthodox.

If he was a God he did not suffer on the cross, if he was a man he could not perform miracles, which was it?

Jesus was born of Mary, just as the rest of us all have mothers. Yet, he was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. He had flesh and blood as we all do, so yes, he did suffer on the cross. Because he was also God, he was able to perform miracles.

 

[consol]

In a sense you are lucky. Personally I think your suggestion is actually good that we attempt to take life as it comes. I think that is the goal. Unfortunately we all fall short of that (or most of us). I agree that a panacea that has no real utility other than to "make us feel good" with no reality to it is probably not the best. But most of us, even skeptics and atheist, often retreat into a "safe space" at times.

I am no gigantic Shakespeare fan, but I do like Hamlet's soliloquy.

For me this has been something I've felt (well, to be honest I never had to face the concept of killing my uncle for killing my dad and sleeping with my mom, but you get the point).

Sometimes reality is just too real. It's hard to face.

Sadly for me, at that time in my life when THESE words were the most true: "...To die: to sleep; No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks..." was precisely when I was a believer. A Christian. Of course my faith was sorely tested by a foe that appeared stronger; depression.

One of the things for me that put me more in your camp, Consol, than in others, is that part of the horrors that haunted me was an obsessive fear of doing the wrong thing in religion (formally called "scrupulosity", a subset of OCD). So for me jettisoning religion was a relief. It was necessary for me. And made more easy when assessed from a skeptical and logical direction.

But the other posters on here are right, religion can bring comfort and some measure of good to the life of the adherent. I find myself also in the camp of some of the "New Atheist" writers who point out that religion can be a catalyst to allow some to commit all manner of excess. Especially when it squelches thought and introspection.

But then even I today find myself harboring irrational thoughts, or grasping at some mental straws to hide behind when the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune come flying at me after a hard day.

Bravo for you to be able to take life as it comes, unvarnished. But not all are as strong. My hope is that I will be ever vigilant to not dive too deeply into delusions.

As always, you're right, if I have it together then I'm lucky, not everyone is as fortunate as me,
but I think religion plays a big part in upsetting people, if they start out with their head full of lies,
things can only get worse the longer they live and the more they learn,
confusion with what they were taught, and what they learn to be true, must play havoc with the mind,
a body can only believe rubbish for so long, (unless you hide yourself away in the church)

I think it should be mandatory for every Christian to go to Africa for a while, and see life as it is lived in the REAL WORLD,
see how their God works on the ground, how it's worked from the start of man, in the dust and the dirt,
it's easy to be religious with a full belly, try living with a parched mouth and an empty stomach for a few years,
then see if they still see their God in the same light, a loving benevolent merciful God.

But they won't, so their God will sit in their minds and continue to make them feel wonderful,
well if they want to spend their lives, deluding themselves, good luck to them.

PS. I'm glad you were able to break free.

 

[thaumaturgy]

Jesus was both - the Early Church Fathers, at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, declared that Jesus was fully human and fully divine.

From that time, this has been accepted by the widest segment of Christianity. The Catholics hold to it, as well as the Eastern Orthodox.



Jesus was born of Mary, just as the rest of us all have mothers. Yet, he was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. He had flesh and blood as we all do, so yes, he did suffer on the cross. Because he was also God, he was able to perform miracles.

I suspect Consol was arguing somewhat "hyperbolically" here. But it does point up one of the most fascinating aspects to Christianity (main line). In light of the Council of Nicaea and the suppression of the Arian Heresy, it did require the strange kind of "double think".

I have a good friend who is a philosophy prof who revealed to me that despite his attending a rather stricter christian church, is a "heretic after Arius". A subtlety likely none of his more fundamentalists co-religionsists would understand, but indeed underlies much of Christianity.

Consol makes a good point raising this because, in reality, the "decision" to adjudicate Jesus as fully human and fully divine is a "necessary" outcome (for the reasons Consol stated about the nature of the sacrifice and suffering) but by no means a logical outcome.

It is a prime example of how the Church is forcing people to hold an illogical claim as fundamentally true, despite the inherent illogic.

Why must God's "incontestable truths" require that our inate ability to think is cast aside?

To some extent it may be what is worst about religion; not that it's bad or good, but that it requires of its adherents that they believe something that makes no sense. It encourages the "hammer to the logic centers of the brain" that can only cause damage down the road.

 

[godsmission]

This deserves another go.

 

[Hespera]

So something that give comfort to the dying and those that know them; that gives faith in dark times; that provides answers in dark and uncertain times, you consider this one of the worse things ever devised? That people have used it to justify atrocities does not mean that religeon itself is an atrocity. That's like blaming the sword not the swordsman.

Same concept, more elegantly stated:

My friends, I had not intended to discuss this controversial subject at this particular time. However, I want you to know that I do not shun controversy. On the contrary, I will take a stand on any issue at any time, regardless of how fraught with controversy it might be. You have asked me how I feel about whiskey. All right, here is how I feel about whiskey:
If when you say whiskey you mean the devil's brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, and despair, and shame and helplessness, and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it.

But, if when you say whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman's step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life's great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm; to build highways and hospitals and schools, then certainly I am for it.

This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise.

 

[AV1611VET]

This deserves another go.

Fair enough --- let me repeat: 2.

 

[AV1611VET]

But, if when you say whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman's step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life's great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm; to build highways and hospitals and schools, then certainly I am for it.

Any alcoholic will use any of the above excuses to get another drink.

 

[Philothei]

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