The Incredible Edible Jesus - Page 52

ghoulslime · 08-04-2011, 03:22 PM

Why won't God heal amputees?

Is God real, or is he imaginary?

Davin · 08-05-2011, 09:14 AM

Quote:

ghoulslime wrote

That is one of the coolest names for a strip joint!

Smellyoldgit · 08-05-2011, 09:49 AM

Bbbut I thought a bungalow had nothing upstairs?

lostsheep · 08-05-2011, 01:31 PM

Quote:

Sternwallow wrote

Right off the top, believers are told, in the starkest, most terrible terms, that curiosity, any attempt to acquire knowledge is THE sinful disobedience and faithlessness. (Genesis) Later, and in horrendous variation, they are told to migrate through existing nations; to seek out and utterly destroy believers in any other deities, entire other wrongly believing neighboring communities (a spooky premonition of theists coming to our forum); to savagely murder entire nations under direct command of their own imaginary deity.

That's interesting, though, isn't it....science encourages questioning, the challenge of assumptions, and testing ideas against reality, whereas right off the bat religious "teachers" (indoctrinators) tell their followers to ignore what they see, to ignore reason, to "go with their guts" or somesuch...and even call the belief in something in the face of contradictory evidence a virtue. But my question is, why do people buy into this, why would anyone agree to just accept what they are told without ever questioning the logic or reality of it? That's one of the things that I find so mind-boggling about religion in general.

Quote:

Sternwallow wrote

Believers are not permitted to accept the right of others to believe differently than they do and they are under orders to force conformance. It is only the fact that most believers are very weak and actually obey these mandates that makes the great majority of believers moderate, nice, honorable, peaceful good people. Believers who do observe and act on the clear teachings of their sacred texts, just because they are thankfully rare, are called radical fundamentalists, who blow shit up. They are the "true" Christians, Jews and Muslims in the mainstream of their religions as defined in their own texts.

Yeah, I've noted this too: the "radical" believers are actually acting on the mandates of their beliefs.

Quote:

Sternwallow wrote

Before a believer protests that those genocidal commands were only for the ancient Jews to keep them together and to survive as a people (itself a goal the value of which has never been explained to me. Jewish culture doesn't seem much better or worse than some others that were lost over the centuries) and that they are no longer in force, having been rescinded by Jesus (immediately following His promise not to rescind them).

But this is what I am getting at, I think: Religion has been used to unify cultures, and increase the survival of that culture over other competing ones. And if you are competing for resources, psychologically it is easier to view your competitors as evil and deserving of destruction. I am thinking that our specie's susceptibility to religion is related to our ability to function socially, to form coherent communities. I am no sociologist/psychologist, but these are my suspicions.

Quote:

Sternwallow wrote

The principle remains that "evil" people, those who believe differently, whether found within the believing community or neighboring it, will taint the whole group and cause God to either harm them or withhold protection from harm. See Fallwell on the human wrong belief as primary cause of hurricane damage.

Fear mongering, scapegoating...always effective for the gullible masses.

Quote:

Sternwallow wrote

Never let it be said that any one of these monstrous religions promotes peace, freedom or tolerance.

Ramen to that!