Do you have a religion?

[SpaceGorilla]

Re: Do you have a religion?

unfortunately it seems i'm all out of popcorn does anyone have any to spare

[Dinglesberry]

Re: Do you have a religion?

anime girls are my religion

[Moria]

Re: Do you have a religion?

anime girls are my religion

[dAnceguy117]

Re: Do you have a religion?

i mean it's either ddrphilosopher all over again or a shitty post on a contentious issue that despite poor judgment in its creation set out in its desired goal to create forum activity due to op's refusal to engage in any line of reasoning whatsoever

so i mean take your pick but the ddrphilosopher fishing post is honestly a better look

I forget who that is but "fishing post" probably provides enough context for me to say it's not that one

have you considered that "op's refusal to engage in any line of reasoning whatsoever" could be due to you being incendiary and unapprochable?

[MinaciousGrace]

Re: Do you have a religion?

I forget who that is but "fishing post" probably provides enough context for me to say it's not that one

dude get real nobody makes a thread on the internet about religion unless they have a point to make

have you considered that "op's refusal to engage in any line of reasoning whatsoever" could be due to you being incendiary and unapprochable?

i mean yes, does that excuse it?

hold on lets try this out

"i dont like the way this person acts so i'm going to definitively state they are wrong without providing any rationale even though, as dickish as this person was, they followed up their statements with a careful line of reasoning"

in fact we can generalize further

"i dont like this person so nothing they say matters and i can feel confident in dismissing the value of their words"

"i dont like this person so really, they dont matter, their life doesnt matter and i can feel confident in selectively applying logic and morality when engaging with them"

"i dont like these people, they offend me, in fact, they're subhuman"

yeah you see where im going with this

[Mahou]

Re: Do you have a religion?

If anyone wants to take a chill pill and relax,

I have lots of chicken and rice at my place. Plus some apple pie.

[Hakulyte]

Re: Do you have a religion?

dude get real nobody makes a thread on the internet about religion unless they have a point to make

promoting forum activity oooweeee

I'm assuming bored and wanted something to read regardless of the outcome.

anime girls are my religion

Requesting anime girls commandments.

[DeciBel1231]

Re: Do you have a religion?

If anyone wants to take a chill pill and relax,

I have lots of chicken and rice at my place. Plus some apple pie.

Sounds good to me. Where at?

[dAnceguy117]

Re: Do you have a religion?

dude get real nobody makes a thread on the internet about religion unless they have a point to make

it's understandable to have this POV by default from being on the internet for years and years, but you dont know a person until you know a person

i mean yes, does that excuse it?

hold on lets try this out

[...]

yeah you see where im going with this

purely in the context of winning a thread, you may be In The Right but I think you are (or would presumably be) walling off an awful lot of people who would otherwise be interesting to engage with

[Mahou]

Re: Do you have a religion?

Sounds good to me. Where at?

Come to Texas.

My treat.

[rushyrulz]

Re: Do you have a religion?

The difference between Religion and the Dragon in the garage is that the Dragon doesn't have books dedicated to it with an entire segment of population preaching it + history marks left over multiple centuries.
Maybe that part of the population is crazy, but I like to think there's potentially more to it.

Does a ton of people believing something necessarily mean that that thing is actually true? Think of a magician who performs in front of a live audience and makes his/her assistant disappear. The audience might believe as an entity that the magician really vanished his/her assistant, but the truth of the matter is that it was just an illusion.

I would qualify myself as a gnostic (or strong) atheist and my reason is this: Humans have always looked for answers to questions they have about the world and are usually not willing to accept "don't know" or "can't know" as an answer. Instead we look for an explanation, and when we don't/can't find one, we invent one. I believe this is how religion came about in the first place and it's also why there are so many different religions around the world. Groups of early humans all around the world came up with their own narratives for how this world came to exist and how we as humans came to exist. It was the best explanation at that time, so it was accepted en masse by these cultures and in turn passed down to their young.

Because humans are constantly looking for explanations and validation in their beliefs, they might pray for an outcome, and if it becomes realized, they will attribute it to their God(s) and use that as validation that their religion is true, when in actuality it is equally, if not more plausible, to be a coincidence. When implementing a thought process like this, it is very dangerous when it comes to continuing to validate a belief that is unfalsifiable. Your belief system will never and can never be disproven, which leads us to the God of the gaps and still having religion today. When science explains one thing that was previously attributed to religion, there will usually be another unknown that will take its place. I have done more research on the topic of religion than I care to admit and the reason why people believe with 100% confidence that their God(s) is/are real is that they were raised in the religion and that they have experienced life-changing events that they attribute to the God(s). When trying to reason with these people by using another religion as an example, the usual response is that people can believe what they want to believe, but they believe their religion is the truth and others (who are equally as convinced as they are, but with Allah instead of Yahweh) are believing a lie simply because it is what they have grown up their whole life knowing.

relevant vid (talk starts at 3:40):

[Travis_Flesher]

Re: Do you have a religion?

in case you missed it- christians are commanded to proselytize, it's part of the christian duty to serving god, you can't abandon that responsibility and then still claim your soul is going to be saved

I understand where both mina and hakulyte are coming from. In the bible belt region of south US where I have lived for 20+ years there are churches everywhere. Most of the church leaders would agree with mina. I agree with hakulyte though, like yeah christianity is great just don't take it too seriously.

The difference between Religion and the Dragon in the garage is that the Dragon doesn't have books dedicated to it with an entire segment of population preaching it + history marks left over multiple centuries.

If the scribes and scholars had faced the dragon, we wouldn't have such a rich history.

[the sun fan]

Re: Do you have a religion?

yes mina, it does matter how you conduct yourself in a discussion

the reason she was frustrated with you is not because she felt like you were winning, if I know her posting style, and I think I do, then she doesn't believe she's lost with a good deal of certainty.

if people don't want to engage you because you're being an asshole, it doesn't matter if you've Won A Thread; you actually lose credibility because it could look to some people like the discussion ended prematurely, and it may very well be the case.

I'm not saying you can't be an asshole, and I'm not even saying that you shouldn't be an asshole in most situations because as far as I can tell its who you are, but when having a discussion like this, yes, it absolutely matters.

you can also fluster whoever you are arguing with (without mention of anyone else) and if all you're trying to do is show off how big your brain's penis is, then that's aite, but if you want to have a real discussion that doesn't end in a loop of "They're not talking to me so I win and their point was dumb so I'd win anyway."

also, who gives the fuck about a hyphen em dash whatever we're here to talk about religion.

----------------------------------

I think something that is kind of interesting to me is specific points in the lives of people who don't believe in any particular faith. Speaking solely for myself, I don't have a specific point in my life where I can point to and say "Yeah, on January 31st 2011; that's the day I stopped being a Christian" but I think a lot of people who were raised in a particular faith have these stories and I'd be interested to hear some.

[the sun fan]

Re: Do you have a religion?

I feel like trying to clarify a bit since I think I explained that pretty fucking awfully

If you want spectators and the person(s) you are arguing with to respect your points, being not-an-asshole is important

[ormix]

Re: Do you have a religion?

You see funnygurl, you have to chill out. Minas perpetual articulation limbo is a logic validation mechanism to witch he also finds comfort as some one of faith would other wise.

We are brought up to understand one thing more universally than the other being that if you're wrong, its like the entirety of you're mental make up is in question and that of a virtual death so you would start over to learn what others think is right.

So naturally being right is all that's ever going to matter. Committing mental suicide via over contemplation will create a feed back loop when every ones position has been stated and can be acknowledge to move on.