Religious Poll

[nikimcbee]

God bless Joe Pesci

[TarJak]

IIRC there was one a few years ago. And I'd say that the GT formum has had a reasonable run of religious as well as political discussions in its time.

[Castout]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

God bless Joe Pesci

He's right something is wrong something is ****ed up but he assumed that all those are God's fault. He assumed that God is the perpetrator of everything! Which God is not!

how come he that doesn't know ANYTHING about God could assume that God is the perpetrator of everything.

Do you know why Jesus taught Thy kingdom come . . . .Thy will BE done on earth as in heaven WHICH MEANS it doesn't always happen that way still on earth.

Not Thy kingdom preserved . . . . .

NOT the TIME YET. Sins is the root of this ****ed up world. Misery breeds misery. Anger breeds anger. Torture breeds torture.

Don't hate me over me commenting this. God is not responsible for much of our misery.

My life is in ruins my future is bleak my health is not good but I still can tell anyone I haven't seen anyone and anything greater than my God. Sure I'm upset why I couldn't be like everyone else and why would despotic people get attracted to me but like I said I haven't seen anything nor anyone greater than my God. Heck for all the enemies throw at me I could have a nation or two to befriend me had I wanted it(or a few others to kill me :P). Nothing is like God. Most of all God is always personal you must find God yourself no one can help you to it. More like until God decides that you must find Him.
My life in one word is PAIN. In fact I rather hate my life but what can I do I'm forever convicted with knowing God no matter how little or far in between.

[Skybird]

@ Castout


========

Is this thread really necessary? This forum is no missionising board or a board over confessions on personal fantasies one holds. Where there is no religious propaganda pushed into the public space, there no anti-religious people must feel provoked by being missionised and must not push their antireligious stuff into public as well - like Castout and me just have demonstrated: the one guy starts to preach, the other sends back a shot in reply. Peace is maintained, and everybody is still free to think what he wants in private, with the public space not needing to bother for either the one or the other. And that's how it should be in a secular society, with any kind of relgion there is and atheism as well. Keep your oh so precious convictions pro of contra to yourselves, where they belong. They belong nowhere else than to the inside of your mind. Nature, the world, the cosmos give nothing for them, and many people live here that do not want to need giving time and awareness for them either.

Play your radio at volume levels where you do not bother your neighbours.

I would simply lock this and similiar threads.

[Castout]

@skybird I wasn't referring to picking up a religion.

What little I know about God is that

God is kind enough to actually love the people who don't know Him at all and powerful enough to literally change our heart. Generous enough to give without being asked, loving enough to give what was asked even when it was really ridiculous, still enough not to give everything that we asked, and strict enough to know that He is GOD such that we are reminded that we're never be on equal terms with God,

God I know is NOT MEEK. Never was, never is and never will be.

[Herr-Berbunch]

According to Ninian Smart's respected definition of a religion, even football (either proper football or 'handegg' ) is a religion... including the wars!

This forum is no missionising board or a board over confessions on personal fantasies one holds.

Says a man on a mission

[antikristuseke]

This about covers my opinion on any and all religions

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Castout

@skybird I wasn't referring to picking up a religion.

What little I know about God is that

God is kind enough to actually love the people who don't know Him at all and powerful enough to literally change our heart. Generous enough to give without being asked, loving enough to give what was asked even when it was really ridiculous, still enough not to give everything that we asked, and strict enough to know that He is GOD such that we are reminded that we're never be on equal terms with God,

God I know is NOT MEEK. Never was, never is and never will be.

Fine. Must we be interested in your precious little sermon? Don't think so. Keep your fantasies where they belong - inside your head.

[UnderseaLcpl]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Peace is maintained, and everybody is still free to think what he wants in private, with the public space not needing to bother for either the one or the other. And that's how it should be in a secular society, with any kind of relgion there is and atheism as well. Keep your oh so precious convictions pro of contra to yourselves, where they belong. They belong nowhere else than to the inside of your mind. Nature, the world, the cosmos give nothing for them, and many people live here that do not want to need giving time and awareness for them either.

The same could be said of many other subjects where people hold "convictions" and we talk about them. Besides, this is a forum where people are free to hold discussions within the established guidelines, including subjects that I'm sure you'd be happy to see absolutely no "time and awareness" devoted to.

In all fairness, you bring up Islam and why it is evil on a pretty regular basis, so you discuss religion too. What if we had a Muslim here who disagreed with your views for religious reasons, or idealogical reasons, or political reasons? Should such a discussion then be forfeit, simply because it involves religion? Should we all be happy then to let the both of you keep your opinions to yourselves?

Religion, including atheism, is a broad subject with far-reaching implications in the secular world. It affects the behaviour of people, the values they hold, and the societies they live in, and is in turn affected by the same. Banning discussion of it is no different from banning discussion of any other institution. Ergo, I feel anyone who wants to should be able to express their opinions on religion, especially in the course of making a point or describing a position they hold.

There can still be peace, so long as people play by the rules they're always supposed to be playing by and demonstrate respect for others.

edit-

Originally Posted by NeonSamurai

Lets step away from the sermonizing please.

And on that note, I will point out to the fellow believers that sermonizing does you no good here, anyway.

[NeonSamurai]

I don't think any of us have an issue with discussing religion in an intellectual and rational fashion. There have been several discussions on that. Also anyone is free to challenge Sky's views on Islam regardless of their own religious views, just as Sky is free to espouse his views. All provided they stay within the bounds of rational discourse.

What we do not need is sermons though. Sermons tend to go beyond the limits of rationality (ie logically demonstrable or provable) and intellectualism. Bluntly put they go into the realm of fantasy; of pure hypothesis without any physical backing. This is the realm of faith and belief. This is also the area where people tend to get very angry if their beliefs are challenged. It is pointless to discuss such stuff as the debate will go nowhere, the believer will continue to believe no matter how much rational counter evidence is provided, and both parties will get upset in the end. That and I have to say that I strongly dislike when others insist on throwing their religious beliefs in my face. I don't care what you believe in, just don't expect me to believe it too just because you do. I also do not like organized religion as I think it generally causes far more harm than good.

That said, if you choose to believe in God, Jesus, Muhammad, the tooth fairy, the flying spaghetti monster, or the invisible pink unicorn in the sky. I am happy for you, believe it all you want if it helps you.

[Skybird]

@ Lance

I do not start discussions where I try to convince others of my religious convictions. Criticism of a relgion, Islam in case of your reference, is something different in this case, because mainly it effects fields of politics and our societies, and I would give a damn for Islam if people falling for it just would keep it a private issue that they do not want to effect society. Unfortunately, the islamic agenda is being driven into our societies day in day out, it does not differ between plitics and religion. Thus, it inevitably always is politics, and to me, it is more politics than religion.

If you want to compare me to Castout's virtuous preaching that he intends as a form of missionising, you would need to show me where I start threads on atheism and trying to missionise people into it. I don't, and in a longer ago past at best started a thread on Pat Condell - and even this is long ago.

But I react to people reserving the right that they may sing their religious song and the neighbourhood just has to listen to it each time they do. so if they show up on the scene, so do I, and when they keep private what is a private thing anyway, then I stay put, too. The magic word is: reciprocity. Save me from you relgious sermoins, and I save you from my atheist criticsm. Bring your sermon upon us and upon me, and I am going after you. That simple. because in a scular society like ours, many people think like I do - and do not want to be bothered by other people's religous mission time and again. Like I also do not want to listen to your radio time and again - so the hell keep the volumen at a levbel where others must not listen to your music, too.

It is illogical to label atheism a religion. You want to give it a bad name: that of religion. But atheism is no relgion. It is the rejection of theistic relgion, and the demand for evidence for theistic claims. You could as well conclude that refusing to learn how to drive a car is a form of car driving. It is absurd.

Neon Samurai brought it to the point when calling it "sermonising". I reserve the right to deand that your freedom of speech ends where you demand me to listen to your sermon even if I do not want that, so that you imply that I must leave the public place/space, because you claim it for yourself. That is kind of an abuse of free speech. Also, it is known by now where religious threads lead to - right onto that track we are now on, again.

If I would do like this on atheism, and launch threads on it time and again, you would not so much call it free speech, but me trying to dominate the forum and driving people away in disgust. Having a discussion on religious implications of some matters, is one thing, for example if discussing the impact of scientific insight on human history and culture and how it changed it. But "sermonising" is something different. Talking about religion in a context that is not religion in itself, is one thing. Propagating religion and why it is so nice to believe in this deity or that goddess, makes missionising the name of the game - and that is something very different than just "talking about religion".

In other words: keep your radio volume such that it does not bother your neighboiurs.And if you park a pickup loaded with that certain brown smelly stuff in the street, don't be surprised if some neigbours become the more upset the longer you wait to remove it again. Missionising means to push religion into the public space - and then it is not religious only anymore but becomes politics, and claim for social influence and power and effcting secular soceity. I do not wish any relgion to shape and form secular societies. Becasue that is the explciti end of secularism - but my freedom and our freedom is worth a thousand times more than any religion's desires or claims for untouchability. and that is why defending freedom can lead to situations where even offending religion can become a moral obligation and a civil duty, if you are serous about freedom.

Keep thy religion to thyself. That's where it belongs - and nowhere else.

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Fine. Must we be interested in your precious little sermon? Don't think so. Keep your fantasies where they belong - inside your head.

He has as much right to talk about what he wants as you do. Nobody is making you click on his threads.

[Sammi79]

Of course it is everyones personal right to believe what they wish to believe, However, I strongly disagree that metaphysical thinking should be in any way involved in government or primary education as is very much the case over most of the world. Present day politicians cannot be seen to be 'unreligious' dare I say ATHEIST whatever they may really believe because 1 thing they definitely believe (and almost certainly it is true) is that they will lose a vast amount of support from the religious masses. This coupled with the biblical creationist nonsense (and all the others too, Judaism/Islam/insert religion of your choice here) that is taught to children who are too young to make rational judgements about it for themselves angers me greatly. This is not the dark ages anymore. We have scientific method, and vast amounts of evidence that strongly suggests that 'GOD' in the form of a intelligent creator entity who is omniprescient and/or omnipotent or for that matter ever has or had a single thought about humanity or anything else is a hopeless infantile fantasy. Yes, the universe is a deeply mystical and awe inspiring place with unfathomable depths of beauty and emptiness, serenity and violence, and I like to think there is a sort of saturating background energy (not in any way to be considered a conscious entity) that makes everything 'be' or 'go' but it does not need gods/devils/afterlives to be this way, at least not for me.

Truthfully, even with all our evidence we will never be able to say for 100% certain that god does not exist. No. What we can say is 99.999999% certain god does not exist. Are you really gonna go with that 0.000001%? seems sort of like betting on a blind, lame, 3 legged horse with a 20 stone jockey to win the grand national no? Still there's nothing quite like a non-existent pantheon of deities and demons to pass the buck on to is there, otherwise we'd have to admit that we, human beings ourselves, are actually the ones responsible for all the great blundering attrocities we continue to commit. Heaven forbid!

Ooops I've gone and said it now. (cringes back from the metaphysical rotten tomatos undoubtedly heading this way...)

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Castout

@What little I know about God is that

God is kind enough to actually love the people who don't know Him at all and powerful enough to literally change our heart. Generous enough to give without being asked, loving enough to give what was asked even when it was really ridiculous, still enough not to give everything that we asked, and strict enough to know that He is GOD such that we are reminded that we're never be on equal terms with God,

God I know is NOT MEEK. Never was, never is and never will be.

And you "know" all this how?